


The Effect of James Whistler

by badboy_fangirl



Series: The Effects Series [4]
Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:48:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: They're just trying to make it out of Panama alive, and intact. But, when Jane realizes she knows Whistler, everything changes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is a resurrection in this fic, just saying. Stay tuned.

Lincoln awoke slowly, totally disoriented. He had the sense not to spring to his feet or anything, just in case they were going to torture the shit out of him before they killed him. He kept his eyes shut and his breathing deep, because he was sure they were watching him. If he was smart about this, he might be able to get the upper hand; he might be able to escape.  
  
As he slowly opened his eyes and saw Jane sleeping on the pillow beside his, he almost laughed out loud at the relief. He’d been dreaming; it was all a dream. He was all right. LJ was all right. Michael was all right.  
  
Okay, it hadn’t  _all_  been a dream.  
  
Michael.  
  
He sat up gingerly, trying not to shake the bed and wake the beautiful woman sleeping next to him. She had turned on one of the bedside lamps and it gave a soft glow to the room. She lay facing him, still only wearing the ARMY t-shirt. The hotel room was warm, even with the air conditioning on, so neither of them had bothered using the blankets on the bed.   
  
Looking around, he saw her cell phone sitting on the nightstand on her side of the bed. Walking around the bed quietly, he picked it up and went into the bathroom. It was dark outside now, but he had no idea what time it was or how long he’d been sleeping. He figured it had been a while though, because for the first time in ages he didn’t feel totally exhausted. He dialed the number of the cell phone he’d left with his brother and Michael answered on the first ring. “Linc?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s me.” He shut the door and glanced at himself in the mirror as he sat down on the closed seat of the toilet. The robe had to go. He couldn’t wear it much longer and retain his self-respect.  
  
“Where are you?” Michael asked, though he didn’t sound anxious.  
  
“With Jane,” Lincoln responded. “She had her own hotel room, I figured it would be less crowded.”  
  
“Right,” Michael said, his voice neutral.  
  
“What time is it?” Lincoln asked.  
  
“Almost 3. We’ve slept some, but we’ve been talking, Linc. I don’t really want to use Sofia as bait. I’d be willing to let Whistler die, but she’s not having any of that, so we’ve got to figure out if he willingly went with them, or if he’s their prisoner. I don’t know how we’re going to get that information.” Michael sounded somewhat refreshed, but not all that interested in what he relayed.  
  
“No, I agree. We won’t let her do anything that might get her killed. You gotta keep an eye on her, though, man. She’ll take off and do her own thing. You gotta keep on her, or keep Sucre on her. Don’t let her get away. She’s crazy in love with that bastard, and she’s likely to do something stupid.” Lincoln sighed. “Jane’s called in some favors. Some of Dad’s old crew, I guess. She’s asleep right now, but when she wakes up I’ll find out everything. I’m going to call the hospital and check on LJ, but let’s meet up, in the morning. We’ll talk about what we’re going to do, and I’ll sit on Sofia if I’ve got to. You got it until then?”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll take care of it. How about 9?”  
  
“Sounds good. Let’s meet at the hospital, okay?”  
  
“Okay. But call me back if anything’s up with LJ?”  
  
“You know I will. The hospital has Jane’s number, they were supposed to call if anything changed, and we haven’t heard anything, so I’m sure it’s all good.”  
  
“I went back and saw him around 9 o’clock last night,” Michael said, and that didn’t surprise Lincoln at all. He’d been so exhausted he’d crashed hard, but with the way Michael’s mind worked, it wouldn’t let him totally rest. “He was still sleeping, but he looked good. He’s really gonna be okay, Linc.”  
  
Lincoln’s chest hurt with sudden pressure; Michael’s wistful tone had a physical effect on him. “If I could not be responsible for one more death, it’s his,” Lincoln confessed.  
  
“You’re not responsible for any of them,” Michael said softly.  
  
“No more than you are,” Lincoln retorted sharply. “You don’t get to go from being pissed at me to taking it all on yourself, Mikey.”  
  
There was a slight pause. “I’m not, Linc, I swear. It’s just, in that moment, when LJ got shot—I just realized how powerless we’ve been all along. I’m sick of it. I want something more from Sara’s death than Susan’s death. I want something better than that.”  
  
“I don’t know if we can have anything more than that,” Lincoln replied honestly. He wished they were having this conversation in person, but he supposed it was easier over the phone. He knew his escape with Jane had been in part about being with her, but it had also been about not having to be with Michael, not right now, not when everything was still so raw and painful between them.  
  
Michael took a deep breath and answered, “I know.”  
  
“Get some more sleep, okay?” Lincoln commanded as nicely as he could.  
  
“I’ll try. You too.”  
  
“I’ll see you in a few hours.”  
  
“Bye, Linc.”  
  
Lincoln disconnected the call and sat with the phone pressed to his forehead for several minutes. He didn’t know if it would ever be possible for things to be all right between him and his brother again, but he hoped this indicated something good. Maybe Jane and her friends could do something to make this right, or at least  _less_  wrong.  
  
He dialed the hospital but was told LJ was resting comfortably. He left a message for his son to call in the morning if he didn’t feel up to company, though he couldn’t see himself not really going to see LJ, whether the kid wanted it or not. He needed to see with his own eyes that his son was still getting better.  
  
When he returned to the bedroom, Jane still lay curled on her side in the same position. He hesitated for a moment, but it really would have taken more sense than he’d ever had not to pull the robe off and lay down on the bed next to her again, totally naked. He was rejuvenated after the solid length of sleep he’d had, and if they weren’t going anywhere for a few hours, he didn’t really see any point in wasting their time.  
  
Propping himself up on his elbow, he looked at her serene face and the curve of her arms. She had tucked her hands under the pillow under her cheek. Her legs were scissored but drawn up towards the center of the bed. He couldn’t decide where to touch her first, or what the best way to wake her up would be, and then suddenly he found himself unable to touch her. She was almost too lovely, almost too good to be true, and he couldn’t help wondering in this silent hotel room, in this moment of truth, if he really deserved to have any kind of comfort or joy through her. It was selfish, to spend time fucking her, even if she wanted it—which she’d indicated she did. He had seen so much waste over the past few months, the lives of everyone he’d ever loved or had even been connected to in a small way extinguished except for Michael and LJ. Was it fair for him to have sex with this woman while Michael sat across town in a hotel room mourning Sara?   
  
He thought of Veronica and how he’d barely had time to even shed a tear for her, and though he knew his time with her had passed and it wasn’t the same as Michael’s loss of Sara, he doubted their loss could be measured against each other fairly. He had loved Veronica his whole life, and while he’d harbored no hope of ever being with her again, her death had been a blow that would have crippled him if had not been forced to carry on. That’s why he’d given Michael the responsibility of looking after Sofia. Michael had to go on; he couldn’t have time to dwell, not now, not when it might break him. When he was stronger, then he could deal with that pain.  
  
Watching Jane sleep turned him on. Not that it took much, he acknowledged ruefully, but just being in her presence did something to him, inside and out, that couldn’t be categorized, at least not right now. All he knew was he wanted to slide himself inside her body more than he wanted anything else, and even stirring up his misery over what Michael had also been through couldn’t really make it abate. He wanted her, and she was here, and he could see no real reason not to have her if she was willing.  
  
No real reason he wanted to dwell on, anyway.  
  
He reached out and placed his hand on the curve of her hip, slowly spreading his fingers down over the top of her butt. She did have a very fine ass, but he’d been made aware of her very fine breasts when they’d been in the shower together. He squeezed her gently with his hand before trailing his fingers up to the letter Y on her shirt. It was molded to the shape of her breast, and with the way her arms were curved up under her pillow he could trace the letter easily. As his finger moved up the base of the letter, her nipple responded to the faint caress, and with that, Jane finally stirred. Her body shifted slightly and as Lincoln lifted his gaze to her face, she opened her eyes to look at him.  
  
Lincoln had felt attracted to lots of women throughout his life, most of which he’d acted on in some way. He’d spent years banging women he couldn’t remember the names of just to forget about Veronica in various ways, at various times, for various reasons. He’d never loved anyone but Vee, in all his life, but at that moment, as Jane’s blue eyes connected with his and her nipple hardened completely under his finger, he wondered if he could love Jane Phillips.   
  
Love her like crazy, love her and risk losing her, know that she had the training to do dirty jobs that could get her killed, that at any given moment she might vanish from his life, just like Veronica had. It was so much more real, here, now, in this moment. For all the times he’d ‘lost’ Vee, she had still been there, if not in his life, at least in his city, or a phone call away, on the planet somewhere. Now she was significantly and permanently gone, and the idea of Jane suffering the same fate terrified him.  
  
He should have moved towards her, he should have placed his mouth on hers, or flicked his finger over her nipple, something.  _Anything_. He should have done something, but he froze and felt unable to move.  
  
Her eyes skittered away from his, down his naked, aroused body and then back to face. “Hot?” she asked, a sparkle in her eyes that pushed him irrevocably into the realm of wanting more than just to fuck the hell out of her.  
  
“A little,” he managed to say and with the relaxation of his vocal chords, his body remembered to move, or at least his fingers did, strumming her nipple and cupping her breast eagerly when she drew in a sharp breath in response.  
  
“Now?” she asked, and he thought he might burst into pure, blue flame. He wanted her so much, and now he  _was_  truly hot, on fire all over, his need for her shoving all other considerations from his mind for a brief moment.  
  
“Please,” he uttered, somewhat uncharacteristically, but he wanted her to know on some level anyway, how much he needed her.  
  
Their lips met, her hands moving quickly from under her pillow to wrap around his neck and pull him closer. Their tongues entwined as he dropped his hand to slide it up under her shirt, skimming across her stomach to fondle her bare breast with the same teasing touch. He wasn’t sure how slowly he could go; in fact, he was pretty sure once he got going nothing would stop him, so he fought against the instinct to simply roll her over with the weight of his body and plant himself between her legs.  
  
She was aggressive, though, her teeth sinking into his bottom lip then pulling back slightly, which forced him to move or lose contact, and then she turned just right and he was half on top of her, his cock throbbing against her inner thigh. “Oh, shit,” he breathed when she instinctively rolled her hips up, caressing him in a very general but nonetheless mind-numbing manner.  
  
One of her hands dropped from his neck to grip his waist. She moved against him again, and he suddenly got that she purposely wanted herself completely under him. Of course, he should have realized any woman who grabbed his ass on the first kiss probably didn’t require much foreplay, especially when they had engaged in so much of it earlier in the bathroom.  
  
That might have been hours ago, but their bodies may as well have just come from that place.  
  
Her nails dug into his side, and she whimpered a little, he hoped in response to the fact that he’d shifted his hips forward and his cock had brushed intimately between her legs. It was all he could do to breathe properly as he felt the soft touch of her pubic hair and the heat he so desperately wanted to plunge himself into. “Linc,” she breathed unsteadily and then he was there, totally on top of her, poised to push inside.  
  
He had no condom, he had no restraint either, but something made him lift his head and ask gutturally, “You on the Pill?”  
  
She nodded jerkily and her thighs widened, making a distinct haven for him that he hadn’t had in a very long time. He dropped his head down, resting his forehead against her cheek. “It’s been a while,” he confessed tightly. “I swear to you the second time will be better.”  
  
He felt her chest move under him in a breath of laughter, and he remembered his hand was still under her shirt, and she wasn’t even totally naked yet. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she whispered against his skin. “This might be the best I’ve ever had.”  
  
He grew impossibly harder at those words, but paused to move away from her, though it nearly killed him to do so. Her eyes widened, and he saw uncertainty at a time when she should have felt immensely confident because there was no way in hell he would stop. Quickly, his hands moved to the hem of her t-shirt and he tugged firmly. “I want you naked,” he explained and she sat up, allowing him to undress her the way she had him in the bathroom earlier.   
  
He knelt between her thighs and looked at her, his eyes scorching every unknown crevice of her body as it was exposed to him. He was so ready he couldn’t believe he wasn’t inside her yet. Her hands slid up his abdomen to his chest, her nails raking lightly and then she laid back, surrendering control in a way that made him positive he would never want to let her go, ever. She wasn’t the kind to ‘bend over’ as they say, but her offering to him humbled him almost as much as it turned him on. He moved forward, ready to end the agony, ready to begin a new, delicious torture, but just as he poised himself at her entrance, the phone, which had been placed back on the bedside table, started ringing.  
  
Lincoln couldn’t help groaning because he knew they couldn’t  _not_  answer the call. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he muttered, carefully moving himself off of her to reach for the disruptive device. “Hello?” he barked hoarsely into the phone.  
  


*

  
  
Jane hadn’t had sex in a long time, probably as long as Lincoln had gone without, though her celibacy hadn’t been of the forced variety. It was difficult to get into a relationship with anyone in her line of work, and the men she’d worked with had never been the kinds she would have been with anyway.  
  
On the verge of bliss, her heart pumping so hard she couldn’t hear anything besides the roaring of blood in her ears, it confused her greatly when Lincoln didn’t join their bodies. His lowly muttered curse words seemed to clear the thump-thump sound in her ear canals so she could hear the phone and then him answering it but when he said, “LJ, calm down,” she sat up, instantly alert. She listened as Lincoln soothed his son, and then he said, “We’re really close. Like three blocks…Yeah, we were sleeping, so give us a little time, but we’ll be there as soon as we can…Listen to me, son. Okay, I want you to take a deep breath. Like this—“ he demonstrated, and then sat quietly while, Jane supposed, LJ did the same thing on his end of the line. “That’s good, buddy. Good. See, you’re just a little panicked, like how Uncle Mike used to get, remember? See? No problem. We’ll be there soon…Yes, I’ll bring Jane with me…Okay, see you in a few… I love you… Kay… Bye.”  
  
He flipped the phone shut and dropped it back on the tabletop. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed so his back was to her, and then he breathed deeply again, the way he had shown LJ. “He had a nightmare. He’s okay, he’s just scared,” he explained, his voice betraying his torn state. She knew he had been as close as she had without actually getting there, and though they’d both give their lives for LJ, right now his phone call could have come even just five minutes later and they would have been done. At least, Jane was sure she would have been done, and she was fairly certain Lincoln would have been too. She’d never been that turned on in her life, ready to come at the slightest touch, but worry for Lincoln’s son had cooled her ardor a tad.  
  
Just a tad, though.  
  
Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around his torso and put her chin on his shoulder. “There will be time for this,” she murmured, but she could feel a tension in him now that had nothing to do with the arousal she knew he still felt. She brushed her lips against his ear and whispered, “We’ll go take care of him. It’s all right, Lincoln.”  
  
He sighed and then lifted his hands so they could circle her wrists. He pulled her closer, a strange sort of hug, before patting her arms dismissively. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he murmured.  
  
Jane could hear the defeated tone in his voice, and she wondered at it. You didn’t have a man so hot he was apologizing in advance for how short the show would be only to have him back out of it altogether. She pressed her face against his neck and kept her arms around him even though he was trying to move away from her. “Lincoln,” she breathed.  
  
He shuddered, she felt the tremor move through his entire body and then he made a short, wounded sound, something from the back of his throat that caused her heart to ache for him. “This is just all wrong,” he gritted out, and then he gently but firmly removed her arms from around him. Standing up he looked at her over his shoulder, but his eyes—though she could see he tried valiantly—couldn’t manage to stay on her face. They traced her nudity with barely restrained hunger, and she knew LJ would be more upset to know he interrupted this than he had been about the nightmare he’d had. Of course, she’d never tell him, but she understood why he’d wanted her to take care his father so badly. Lincoln had gone for so long without affection of any kind, his longing was palpable between them.  
  
Certainly, her own desire was equally strong. She put her hand in his and pulled him back to the bed, and he didn’t really try to resist her. Pressing her lips to his cheek, the corner of his mouth and then opening her lips over his, she kissed him delicately, brushing her tongue over his teeth and flirting with his tongue when he gasped in response. She pulled back and said softly, “There are clothes for you, over there. The concierge was able to find something, just like I thought he would. Now, get dressed, and we’ll go take care of LJ. And when we have time, we’ll finish this.”  
  
He dropped his head down, and she would swear he was still looking at her body, though covertly, but then he sighed forlornly. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this at all, Jane. Maybe we’re just asking for trouble. It’s like daring fate to take you away before I can even really enjoy you. I should just  _not_  have you and then there’d be no reason for you to get killed.”  
  
Jane tipped his chin up with two fingers until their eyes met. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said bluntly. “We can’t live our lives like that.”  
  
His blue eyes turned glacial, and she was actually relieved to see some of the moroseness leave his countenance, burned away by anger. “Self-preservation is all I’ve got left,” he stated. He got up from the bed and started looking around.  
  
Jane pointed to the pile of clothes on top of the dresser as she demanded, “You’re gonna go through this—the hardest, most horrible thing in your life—worrying about protecting yourself from  _this_?” she demanded, feeling her ire rise up as she pointed between their bare bodies. “You’re gonna  _not_  let it happen now so you don’t shed possible tears later?”  
  
“They killed the woman my brother loves,” he explained gruffly, turning from her to pick up the underwear that sat upon a t-shirt and a pair of colorful board shorts. “And before that, they killed my ex-girlfriend, my ex-wife and my father!” He quickly pulled the boxer briefs up his legs and then as his head popped through the hole of his shirt he asked, “How can I even think about creating some sort of tie to you when we both know how it will end?”  
  
“We don’t know anything, yet. Until my guys get here and assess the situation, until we even know where Whistler is, how can you not? How could you be around me, but not be with me? Especially when I want to be with you?” She fired the questions off so quickly, she saw him blink and try to formulate a good argument, but he didn’t speak fast enough. “I’m not willing to play it that safe. I’m not willing to only cry  _if_  someone dies.”  
  
He looked puzzled by that statement, but he also finally found something to say, because he asked, “Didn’t you cry when you found out Aldo died?”  
  
He reached for the shorts, but he didn’t get as far as putting them on because her next words stopped him in his tracks. “Of course I cried. I cried after he was gone, not at the idea that he could be gone. There’s a difference, Lincoln.”  
  
When he finally moved a moment later, he didn’t look at her as he slid the shorts up his legs. Lifting his head, he announced, “The difference is I should know better now.” His tone held a sharp edge of finality that Jane found preposterous when they had only just begun this whole thing. “I’ll wait for you downstairs. If you’re not down there in five minutes, I’ll leave without you.” His eyes did connect with hers then, and she knew he was serious. Fucking stupid, but serious. Long seconds ticked between them, and then he turned and walked out of the hotel room.   



	2. Chapter 2

When Jane joined him in the lobby a few minutes later, she looked like a tourist. Her hair was swept up into a ponytail, she had on shorts and a tank top that emphasized the gorgeous length of her legs and arms, much to Lincoln’s discomfort, and she had some dark sunglasses she was just hooking into the scoopneck of her her shirt as she got to the base of the stairs.   
  
“Ready?” she asked, completely calm and without an iota of anger.  
  
It pissed Lincoln off that he was the one mad about everything. It was he, after all, who had made the decision. He was calling the shots.  
  
If he didn’t want to get involved with Jane, that was his business.  
  
When he pushed away from the wall to walk with her out into the early Panamanian morning, where the sunlight was just beginning to touch the edges of the city, his irritation seemed to lift off of him in red waves.  
  
She could have the decency to be disappointed, at least. He knew he was right; and as she walked swiftly towards the hospital with him, he acknowledged that she must have come to that same conclusion in the few minutes they were apart. That was one of the things he liked about her; she was no-nonsense.  
  
But maybe she didn’t have to be  _so_  no-nonsense. She didn’t speak at first and he found himself buoyed up by that; if she was giving him the silent treatment, then she had to be having an emotional reaction. But about halfway there she turned her head and said, “We should probably get some food. Does the hospital have a cafeteria?”  
  
Lincoln scowled. Maybe she was just hungry, and that’s why she wasn’t talking. “I think so, yeah,” he said. It was a full service hospital, so he was pretty sure they had a cafeteria, though he hadn’t looked for it the day before. His stomach grumbled loudly, and he found himself wondering when he last ate.  
  
“We’ll see LJ, get some food, and then we need to meet up with your brother and your friends to discuss what’s going to happen next,” Jane said, slowing as they turned the last corner to the hospital.  
  
“Michael was going to meet us here in a few hours anyway, I’m sure we could call him and get them to come sooner,” Lincoln said.  
  
By now they were walking up the steps into the hospital and Jane nodded. “Sounds good." She tossed him her cell phone. "You want to call him before we go in to see LJ?"  
  
Quickly, Lincoln dialed Michael's cell phone and gave him the update. Within two minutes, he was ready to join Jane just past the front doors.  
  
Upon entering the hospital, he was assailed with all kinds of feelings, the uppermost being the relief that they were going to see LJ because he'd had a nightmare, not because he'd taken a turn for the worse during the night. When they got to LJ's room, they still had to be decked out in scrubs, masks, and gloves, but they were allowed to go in together and LJ looked ten times better than he had when Lincoln had last seen him.  
  
"Hey," LJ said happily, his eyes moving back and forth between his father and Jane. Lincoln got the distinct feeling that the wheels turning in LJ's head were much the same as his, but for very different reasons. The idea of Lincoln and Jane was a good one, on the surface, even Lincoln could see that. LJ obviously adored Jane, and so if there was some way to keep her in his life--via his father--he'd be all for that.  
  
Lincoln noticed LJ was now semi-upright, the top half of his hospital bed had been lifted up. "You look great, buddy," he said, circling the hospital bed so he stood on the opposite side from Jane.  
  
"I feel okay now," LJ said, his cheeks reddening slightly. "I'm sorry I was such a big baby on the phone," he said, but he reached for a hand from both adults.  
  
"Not a problem," Lincoln said, squeezing LJ's fingers in his own. "We were happy to come back down here. We were planning on coming in a few hours anyway. You just speeded things up a little."  
  
"That's right," Jane chimed in. "I'm glad you're feeling better. We'll have to find out from the doctor when you can check out."  
  
LJ shook his head. "Not for a few days at least," he said. "Dr. Contreras made that crystal clear when I asked him last night. He said he didn't want me to get my hopes up and he really didn't want me telling you guys something unrealistic. He said with the damage to my liver, four days is the absolute minimum that I'll stay in."  
  
"Even though you're improving so rapidly?" Jane asked doubtfully.  
  
While LJ explained in more detail what Dr. Contreras thought, Lincoln inwardly cursed. That was his first line of defense right there: the hope that LJ would be with them, and he would need tending to; that would insure that he and Jane were never alone, not to mention that when it came down to it, and whatever plan her men intended to carry out, he could insist that he go with them and she stay and take care of LJ. With LJ's help, he felt sure he'd be able to keep Jane out of the line of fire.  
  
"Well, in that case," Jane said, drawing Lincoln back into the moment, "Why don't you get more rest, like you need. We're gonna go grab a bite to eat, and then your Uncle Mike will be here in a while. I'm sure he'll want to see you."  
  
LJ turned his head to look at Lincoln. "You're still going to try to find Whistler, right?"  
  
Lincoln nodded, but before he could say anything, Jane jumped in with, "We're going to do what we can to find him, but as soon as you're mobile we're getting the hell out of Panama. The sooner, the better."  
  
This was news to Lincoln, and he reacted as such. "What? We're not leaving Panama! Not until we--"  
  
"Your brother is wanted fugitive here, Lincoln. Do you really think he can just meander around the city and not get caught?"  
  
"He's a fugitive back in the States, too!" Lincoln shouted. He pointed a finger at her. "You don't get to call the shots, Miss-Ex-Company. We'll talk about what we're gonna do when we see Michael. Nothing's been decided." He looked down at LJ before reiterating sharply, "Nothing's been decided."  
  
Quietly, she responded with, "I didn't say we had to go back to the States, Lincoln," which caused Lincoln's eyes to jump back to Jane and land stormily on hers.  
  
Then LJ said, "Dad, you gotta listen to Jane. She knows what she's doing."  
  
"And I don't?" Lincoln asked, turning an accusing glare upon his son.  
  
LJ's eyes flickered, indecision apparent on his face. "I just mean--"  
  
"She didn't do a very good job of keeping you safe, did she?" Lincoln asked hotly.  
  
"Wait just a damn minute--" Jane began.  
  
"That was my fault!" LJ said, and suddenly one of the monitors next to LJ's bed started beeping crazily, and the anger drained out of Lincoln, replaced by abject fear.  
  
All three of them stopped talking, and looked around, but not one of them could see what was causing the beeping. Lincoln's hand manacled LJ's shoulder and he asked, "What hurts, son?"  
  
"Nothing," LJ said, his consternation clear. "I feel fine."  
  
Jane turned and left the room and less than 30 seconds later returned with a nurse who declared that the problem was the IV in LJ's left arm. It had somehow gotten folded up beneath him and when the fluid couldn't flow easily through the tube, the machine started beeping to indicate that they needed to straighten it out. After the nurse left again, Lincoln laughed nervously. "Anyway..."  
  
"Susan wanted us to wait for Jane. I convinced her to just take me and leave before Jane got back. You know what would have happened to her if I'd waited, Dad," LJ said earnestly. "You know what Susan was like. You know what she did to Sara."  
  
Properly shamed, Lincoln nodded, but wouldn't look at Jane. "I know, LJ. You're right." Visions of Sara's head, dismembered from her body, swam in his mind and the physical reaction he had at the thought of Jane in the same condition caused him to swallow convulsively.  
  
"I'm going to get something to eat before I pass out," Jane announced. Leaning over LJ, she pulled her face mask down and kissed his forehead. "I'll see you in a while, okay?" she asked.  
  
"Yeah, okay," LJ agreed, his eyes worriedly tracing her face. When he looked back at Lincoln, Lincoln made sure he smiled reassuringly.  
  
Jane walked out without saying another word. "I'll be there in a minute," he hollered after her, but he thought she probably didn't care now. Well, good. If she hated his guts, she certainly wouldn't be trying to get him into bed. It was a good thing.  
  
The fact that he had to wrap the fingers of his free hand tightly around the railing of LJ's hospital bed to keep himself from chasing after her could be ignored. He could ignore it. He could not care. He couldn't care, he just couldn't let himself.  
  
As soon as Jane was out of earshot, though, LJ said, "Dad, you go apologize to her right now. If you don't--" and then he stopped talking. Lincoln watched as his son's eyes blinked back tears and his teeth worried his bottom lip. "Dad, Jane is amazing. And she would do anything for us. And that was just a real shitty thing to say to her. You know she felt horrible about what happened."  
  
Lincoln could say nothing more than, "I know. I know, LJ."  
  


*

  
  
Jane waited up the hall for Lincoln. At first she was just going to go down to the cafeteria without him, but the farther she got from LJ's room, the more angry she became. She wouldn't let this one pass. She couldn't let him think he could be an asshole to her and that would be acceptable now that he'd decided they weren't going to be lovers.  
  
A few moments later, he came walking up the hall. He had shed his scrubs, just as she had upon leaving LJ's room, and he had one hand in the side pocket of his orange board shorts. The dark blue t-shirt off-set the color of his shorts and emphasized the width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist. Jane watched him saunter towards her, his head down, unaware that she watched him. The only thing she could think was that it should be a crime for a man to look that good when he was such a prick.  
  
He glanced up just a few feet before he got to her. She could see him brace himself, as though he knew she would say something, as though he could possibly know her that well already.  
  
Well, he didn't. He didn't know jackshit about her, he just thought he had it all figured out. "For the record," she began, her voice level and without a trace of anger.  _Blood like ice water_ , that's how Aldo had always described her. No matter how mad she got, she could always control it. "If you have a beef with me about what happened to LJ, now would be too late to bring it up."  
  
"I don't, Jane, I just--"  
  
"Furthermore," she interrupted. "If you think I won't kick your ass if you deserve it, guess again. I know twenty ways to kill you, but I know even more ways to maim you. Do not piss me off."  
  
She turned to walk away from him, but he reached out and grabbed her arm, preventing her dramatic departure. "If you think you can threaten me, then--" He was abruptly cut off when she slammed her arm into his chin, knocking his head back. With her forearm across his throat she shoved him into the wall, hard, and planted her knee between his legs, just below where it would hurt him greatly if she'd raised her aim just three inches. He couldn't finish whatever he'd been about to say because she'd also knocked the wind out of him by ramming her fist into his stomach.  
  
"It's not a threat." Jane's breathing was a bit labored from her quick movements, and their noses were almost touching. "I will always be superior to you, Lincoln, when it comes to this. I am a trained killer. I have skills you could not have learned on the street, though I don't doubt you can hold your own. I will not, however, allow you to run the show just because you think you know what the hell is best. If it's the last thing I do, I will get Aldo Burrows' sons and his grandson out of this godforsaken place alive. I do not care about James Whistler. I will do what I can to get him out, but I do not care about him. Do you understand?"  
  
Lincoln's eyes shifted upward, glancing off the ceiling before landing somewhere behind her. He struggled; she wasn't sure if it was just because the words hurt his pride so much or because he still didn't have enough breath in his lungs to choke them out. "Yes, I understand," he muttered.  
  
Jane backed off of him slowly, her training still evident. She didn't think he'd try to best her, but she couldn't be entirely sure.  
  
"Hi, Jane," came a voice from behind her. Turning, Jane saw Michael standing just up the hall, flanked by Sofia and Sucre. They all had interesting expressions, and Jane wondered how much of that they'd seen. Sofia and Sucre both looked more concerned than anything else, but Michael looked highly entertained. "How are things going?" Michael asked, and Jane could swear he bounced on the balls of his feet in a fit of glee all at Lincoln's expense.  
  
"Things are fan-fucking-tastic," Lincoln said sarcastically as he brushed past Jane. "Let's get something to eat."  



	3. Chapter 3

Cafeteria food seemed to be more palatable in Panama, or maybe Lincoln was just ravenously hungry. As they sat down at the table Jane had commandeered, nobody spoke; everyone just ate, and ate heartily.   
  
Lincoln chewed slowly without making eye contact with his brother or Jane, who had taken up residence together at the other end of the table. He blatantly eyed Sofia, trying to gauge how she was doing. He waited for her to say something, anything in opposition to what Michael must have said to her, but she just returned his gaze steadily, her eyes showing concern for him.  
  
It was funny how a week changed things. While they’d been running all over Panama City to do what they had to do to help Michael and Whistler get out of Sona, they’d constantly bickered, and even parted ways after she’d held him at gunpoint. But the great thing about Sofia, despite her agility and spunk, was that she had come to understand she was way out of her league, so she had quickly deferred to Lincoln in various ways on various subjects, and ultimately, he knew if he said jump her only question would be how high. She trusted him implicitly, though he knew she believed he had her boyfriend pegged wrongly. He had saved her life, and because of that her trust had been hard earned.  
  
She reached across the table and wrapped her hand around his wrist gently. “How’s your son?” she asked.  
  
Lincoln nodded enthusiastically as he swallowed a bite of food. “He’s great. Doing real well. He said the doc said he could go home at the end of the week, most likely.”  
  
“Good,” she said softly. “I’m glad.” She smiled furtively and then her eyes darted to the other people at the table with them, and Lincoln happened to follow her gaze only to see that Jane was staring hard at both of them. When her gaze dropped to Lincoln’s arm where Sofia’s fingers lingered, Sofia removed her hand.  
  
“So what’s the plan?” Sucre asked.  
  
Jane’s eyes moved away and she gave Fernando a smile that Lincoln found himself not liking. It was too friendly, too intimate. Too not the way Jane would act towards a total stranger. “I’m glad you asked,” she said sweetly.  
  
“Should we discuss this here?” Michael asked, glancing around the nearly deserted cafeteria.  
  
“Here is just as safe as any other place, I’m sure,” Jane said with a quick sweep of her eyes around the room. “My team will get here sometime today, and hopefully they will have more information on Whistler when they arrive. Once I have that information, we can make a more educated guess about his involvement with these people and what exactly they want from him.”  
  
“I’ve known James for three years,” Sofia said, a tinge of hostility in her voice. “You can ask me questions about him, you know.”  
  
Jane nodded at Sofia. “I want to pick your brain for sure, you may have information you don’t even know you have. Also, Lincoln said you have an apartment here? Is that correct?”  
  
“Yes,” Sofia said, glancing back at Lincoln briefly.  
  
“I assume you have pictures of James there?” Jane asked.  
  
Sofia nodded. “Yes, of course I do.”  
  
“Good, then while I send these boys off to buy some ammunition, maybe you could take me to your apartment? There may be other items of use there, too.”  
  
“Wait just a minute,” Lincoln interjected. When Jane’s blue eyes turned on him, he had a vision of her leaping the length of the table and ripping his heart out of his chest. He tried to keep his tone pleasant. “I just wanted to point out that the reason we haven’t already gone to Sofia’s apartment is because they might be waiting for her there. We’re trying to keep her safe,” he said, maintaining eye contact with Jane even though it was difficult. If they were alone together, he knew they would brawl it out, and the upshot of that would be him inside her until he lost his mind.   
  
“I’ll keep her safe,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “But I need to see pictures of this guy and I need to look for other clues. If there is some kind of trap set for her, I will be the one most likely to achieve escape. Well, other than you, perhaps,” she said with a deferential smile at Michael. Lincoln’s blood boiled as Michael laughed softly and waved his hand dismissively.  
  
“Fine,” Lincoln said, though his lips barely moved.  
  
“Let’s meet up back at your hotel,” Jane said directly to Michael this time, glancing at her watch. “At 10am. That should be enough time for you guys to get guns for all of you, and enough ammo to cover us all.” She handed a piece of paper to Michael.  
  
“I already have a gun, and so does Sucre,” Lincoln said.  
  
“I also have a gun,” Sofia said.  
  
“Well, great, then Michael’s the only one who needs one, right?” Jane asked.  
  
Michael nodded, and glanced over at Lincoln. “You know a place we can get one?” he asked. “And various types of ammo?” He held up the paper Jane had given him.  
  
Lincoln nodded curtly and Sucre offered, “I know a few places, too.”  
  
“Great. Sofia and I will go. Lincoln, do you know what kind of ammo Sofia needs?” Lincoln nodded, because he was very familiar with Sofia’s gun. “Michael,” Jane said softly, touching Lincoln’s brother’s shoulder gently as she pushed away from the table. “I think LJ would like to see you too, before you guys head out.”   
  
Sofia’s brown eyes searched Lincoln’s, but she said nothing as she too stood up and moved around the table. Lincoln got to his feet and reached out to her, wrapping his fingers around her upper arm. “I trust Jane,” he said as he realized his questioning had made it appear that he didn’t. “She worked for my dad, and she looked after LJ for a while. You’ll be okay.”  
  
Sofia leaned in and whispered, “The Company got LJ away from her, though.”  
  
Lincoln dropped his head so that his mouth was near her ear. “Only because she wasn’t there. If she’d been there—well, I think Susan would have died in the States if she’d had a run in with Jane. LJ was trying to protect Jane; if you ask me, he protected Susan.” He squeezed her arm. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” He nodded his head slightly, and nudged Sofia towards Jane encouragingly. “She’d die before she let anything happen to you.”  
  
Sofia nodded, and then just before she moved to step away from Lincoln, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she whispered, hugging him tightly. “Thank you for trying to rescue James.”  
  
Lincoln hugged her in return, surprised by the show of affection. “You’re welcome,” he murmured quietly.  
  
“Can we go now?” Jane asked, her voice softly intruding.  
  
Sofia pulled away from Lincoln and nodded again. “Okay. I’m ready.”  
  
Lincoln turned, wanting to say something to Jane, anything, like  _good luck_ , or  _come back soon_ , or  _be careful_ , but any and all words clogged in his throat as their eyes met. He should never have allowed any of this to happen. He shouldn’t let her take over like she was, but he felt helpless to stop it. He only hoped the men coming to assist them were many, and that the guns they carried had found their targets unerringly in the past.  
  
“We’ll see you in a few hours,” Jane said, though she didn’t even glance at Michael or Sucre.  
  
Lincoln couldn’t speak. Physically unable to utter a word, he finally just nodded and then forced himself to turn away from her. If it was this hard to let her leave when she was just going to Sofia’s apartment, how much harder would it be to sit back and wait while she attempted to rescue Whistler?  
  
God, why had he let this happen? Why had he ever acted on that spark of attraction? The closest they ever got should have been their introductory head butt, end of story.  
  
Michael’s hand came down on his shoulder to squeeze tightly. “Shall we go?” he asked, his voice low.  
  
Lincoln looked up to find Sucre studying him rather intently from across the table while Michael stood right next to him. “Yeah,” Lincoln said.  
  


*

  
  
Sofia and Jane drove Sofia’s car to the apartment. “Drive by slowly and let me check the environs,” Jane instructed as they turned into the residential neighborhood. It was a nice section of Panama City, much to Jane’s relief. She had imagined a place in the ghetto, with far too many people around, and the horror of trying to decipher if any of them were with The Company. As it was the only people around these apartments were children, running and playing in the early summer sun. She made a quick count; there were seven, four girls and three boys, all somewhere between 7 and 12 years old.  
  
She didn’t see any suspicious cars either, so she told Sofia to park the car up the street and then they walked half a block down to the apartment complex.  
  
Jane kept her arms relaxed in case she had to make a quick grab for the gun that was on her hip in a holster under her loose-fitting tank top, but they got to the door of Sofia’s apartment with no problems. As they entered, Jane looked around carefully, pointing to Sofia to stay just inside the door as she checked the other rooms. The apartment was empty of people, but someone had obviously been there, because the furniture and all of Sofia’s belongings were strewn across the place like someone had been looking for something. She drew her gun before she checked the bathroom, bedroom and kitchen.  
  
Jane came out of the kitchen a moment later and said, “All clear. What were they looking for?”  
  
Sofia’s wide eyes told her before her response, “I don’t know.” She stepped over some of the mess and then tears appeared in her eyes. “I guess I really thought Lincoln and Michael were over thinking the whole thing. I didn’t think anyone would really come here.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Jane said, sliding her gun back into place on her hip. “Lincoln and Michael have been through a whole lot the last few months. They know exactly what they’re talking about.”  
  
Gesturing with both hands, Sofia said, “I had a hiding place, though. The last time I came home, I had a feeling I should put the things I thought were important in a safe place.”  
  
“Where’s that?” Jane asked.  
  
“In here,” Sofia said, leading Jane past the bedroom into the bathroom. Sofia opened one of the cupboards that held bath towels and removed the few towels that had not been yanked out previously. Then she reached inside, far into the back of the cupboard, pushing against the far wall. The back panel lifted up and out and from a very awkward angle, Sofia pulled a shoebox from there.  
  
Slightly impressed by the young woman’s intuitiveness, Jane was anxious to get her hands on the box, but then she heard a noise, something she thought came from near the front door. “Stay here,” she said lowly, and then she pulled her gun out again and moved back towards the front of the apartment.  
  
The blinds were already down on the large picture window when they came in, a detail Jane was sure whomever had ransacked the place had seen to. She edged up to the window, listening hard, but she didn’t hear anything except children’s voices. Using one finger, she lifted one of the plastic edges of the blinds so she could see out. Nothing amiss was visible except for the kids who were running back and forth about twenty feet from Sofia’s front door. It looked like they were playing some version of tag.  
  
Shaking off her paranoia, she went back to the bathroom and found Sofia sitting on the toilet, the box clutched to her chest. Jane knew the best thing to do was get out of there as quickly as possible; there was no way she could look through the whole house the way it was, not as carefully as she would like to, anyway. Now certain that this Whistler guy had done something like she had been trained to do as well, like planting things in this apartment, things that would help him in a pinch, possible escape plans, other identities—a myriad of things that could have already been found and destroyed by The Company.  
  
Lincoln had told her before he’d fallen asleep the night before that Sofia had gone to Whistler’s own apartment—one she hadn’t even known he had—and found a passport with a fake name (or his real name, perhaps?) but that had already been claimed by The Company. Jane knew, in this line of work, you never put all your eggs in one basket, so she wondered what they might have found here in this apartment if they’d gotten there first.  
  
“Is that his desk, or is there anything that was something only he used?” Jane asked, looking around. She pointed to an overturned desk in the bedroom, and a computer that had had the hard drive removed.  
  
Sofia shook her head. “No. We both live here together, we have no secrets from each other.”  
  
Jane lifted her eyebrows disbelievingly. “Except for the four months of the year that you never saw him, right?”  
  
Sofia’s cheeks flushed. “Lincoln told you everything?”  
  
“Yes, he told me everything. He’s trying to get your boyfriend rescued, and we need all the facts to do that,” Jane replied, unable to keep the bite out of her voice. “Although my advice to him was getting him, his brother, and his son as far away from here as possible, he’s insistent that we help you.”  
  
Sofia lifted her chin. “Lincoln is a good man,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.  
  
“Yes, he is, and if you somehow get him, Michael, or LJ killed because you don’t tell me everything you know about your boyfriend, I will not hesitate to leave you hanging in the wind, you understand?”   
  
Jane started to tuck her gun away again, waiting for Sofia to respond, but the woman’s eyes moved to a point beyond Jane’s shoulder and the abject terror that lit her face had Jane in motion before she even thought it through fully.  
  
Wrapping her arm around Sofia’s waist, Jane dove for the floor, taking them both out of firing range, just as a bullet whizzed through the air. “Go for the back door,” Jane whispered urgently. “But stay down.”   
  
They crawled across the floor together towards the back door, Sofia more awkwardly because she still had the shoebox, though it was somewhat squashed now. Jane rolled onto her back, aimed her gun and fired all nine rounds at the same place, right where the offending bullet had come through the window on the opposite side of the front door, the side that was much smaller and didn’t have a Venetian blind drawn over it. Then she dropped the magazine on the floor and pulled a fresh one from her sock. Shoving it into place, she rolled again, this time thrilled to see that Sofia had made it to the back door, and was now looking back at her, waiting.  
  
Jane maneuvered across the floor and they slipped outside onto the non-fenced patio and the melee reached their ears. There were several women screaming and children crying, and Jane used that to her advantage. Leaving the scene of a crime with that many witnesses would take the police quite some time to dig through. Pushing Sofia forward again as they got to their feet, she said, “Run towards the city center. If we get separated, go back to Michael’s hotel, but I suggest you stay with me if you want to stay alive.”  
  
The shooter, whoever it had been, had to be dead, otherwise there wouldn’t have been so much commotion on the front side of the apartment building. They ran from the back side, straight into a residential area filled with houses and Sofia panted, “What about my car?” as they hit the second block in their sprint.  
  
“When the cops see your apartment, they’ll start investigating—don’t slow down!” Jane barked as they rounded the corner. Sofia still gripped the shoebox tightly, but she was breathing hard, obviously not used to running a 200-meter foot race. As the distance grew between them and Sofia’s apartment, Jane slowed her pace slightly, more to allow the younger woman to keep up with her than anything else. “Now the Panamanian authorities will be looking for you as well as The Company,” she said, trying to clue Sofia in somewhat.  
  
They’d been running for about 15 minutes when Sofia absolutely couldn’t keep going, so they found a small, fenced area that housed a giant garbage receptacle. “Rest for five minutes,” Jane said, holding up five fingers. “Then we have to keep moving. We have to get back to Michael and Lincoln as quickly as possible.”  
  
Sofia only nodded because she couldn’t actually make any sound other than to gasp for breath. Jane wiped her forehead with the hem of her tank top and looked around covertly. Then, so as to make use of all the time they were wasting just standing there, she grabbed at the shoebox in Sofia’s hands. Sofia’s brown eyes came up accusingly, but she let the box go, whether from sheer exhaustion or just because she knew Jane might knock her flat if she protested, Jane didn’t know. But as she pulled the crushed box lid off, she could not have prepared herself for what she saw inside.  
  


*

  
  
It took all of 30 minutes for Lincoln, Michael and Sucre to run the errand Jane had sent them on. They went to two different shops, and Sucre bought the stuff at one while Lincoln bought it from the second. They didn’t go in together, instead the two not doing the purchasing loitered casually out front, waiting for the third.  
  
It was a good thing Michael had spent nearly 45 minutes chatting with LJ before they left the hospital, otherwise not only would they have had almost two entire hours to kill before Lincoln could authentically start worrying about Jane and Sofia’s whereabouts, it was likely that Michael would not have had the balls to say what he said to Lincoln as they settled back into the hotel room.  
  
Sucre deposited the different types of ammunition into various fanny packs that he’d been genius enough to insist they buy; after that, he flung himself down on the hotel room sofa and promptly went to sleep, leaving Lincoln and Michael alone for the first time since they’d both been on the same side of the fence.  
  
“So, what’s the deal with Jane?” Michael asked, drawing Lincoln’s attention from the large window he stared out of, though he didn’t really see anything going on six stories below him.  
  
“The deal?” Lincoln asking, flicking a glance at his brother, who had flopped stomach side down on the bed. “The deal is she’s going to try to save Whistler because she’s a professional. And I’m fuckin’ tired, man.”  
  
“No,” Michael said softly. “I mean, what is  _your_  deal with Jane? We could have fairly cooked our breakfast ourselves this morning off the looks you two kept throwing at each other.”  
  
This time Lincoln didn’t look at his brother and it took every ounce of strength in his body to keep his neck muscles facing forward. “It’s nothing.” He paused, and then forced himself to elaborate. “It’s like I’m used to being the boss, and she’s used to being the boss, and you know. Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians. Something like that.”  
  
Michael didn’t respond, and for about 30 seconds, Lincoln thought— _hoped, prayed!_ —his brother had fallen asleep, like Sucre, to leave him alone with his torturous thoughts. But a very softly spoken sentence shattered that hope completely. “I knew Sara for 72 days, Lincoln.” There as a long pause and then Michael continued, “Seventy-two days. And it hurts, of course it hurts like nothing ever before in my life, but I wouldn’t trade those 72 days. At first, I thought I would, I thought I’d do anything for her to be all right, for her to be safe back in Chicago living her life completely unaware of me, but that’s a lie. I would rather have had 72 days of knowing her, of having her in my life, of knowing what life is like because Sara Tancredi lived, than to have never had it all.”  
  
Lincoln wouldn’t look at his brother now because tears filled both their eyes. He couldn’t speak because tears choked him. He thought of Veronica, missing her so much his chest ached, and his fear for Jane seemed to consume his body, making him tremble and shake from the inside out. He dug his teeth into his lower lip, saying nothing.  
  
“The bottom line, Linc, is they all loved us. And they all died for this cause—for that love. I used to not be able to comprehend that, you know. How could you love me so much that you would do the crazy things you did for me, but then I found myself reciprocating, so of course I understand it now. I have to believe that none of them would change a thing, because they loved us.”  
  
Lincoln felt irrational anger surge through him, drying some of his tears. “Is that what you tell yourself? Is that how you get through it?” He looked over at Michael now, who still lay on the bed, though he leaned on his elbows, watching Lincoln intently. “I know all of them—including you—would have been much better off if my life had never touched theirs, and no amount of bullshit is going to change the truth. If it weren’t for LJ, I’d have just walked away, disappeared into the fuckin’ jungle weeks ago.”  
  
“If that were true, you wouldn’t be trying to help Sofia now.” Michael’s voice stayed soft, which only served to piss Lincoln off some more.  
  
“Whatever,” he muttered, turning away, looking back out the window.  
  
“Don’t whatever me,” Michael said. “I’m with Jane, we ought to just hightail it the hell out of here. You’re tired? Well, so am I, Linc. I’m tired, and I’m sad, and I haven’t had a chance to grieve for anyone from Veronica to our father to the woman I just met and fell in love with. And believe it or not, I’m tired of saving everybody. I don’t have the will for it anymore. But you, you’ve got enough and to spare, and the rest of us are just drug along for the ride. I’m afraid to leave you, sure that if I do it will just be one more thing that eats at me at night when I try to sleep. Whistler is Company, I know it. And here we are trying to save him.”  
  
Lincoln turned then, and stalked towards the bed. “I’m not trying to save him,” he growled, “I’m trying to make sure Sofia knows the truth.”  
  
Michael sat up quickly. “What?” he asked.  
  
“We can’t leave her here with the chance that he may come back with some song and dance for her. She’s practically a kid, Michael, and as green as grass. And…” he looked away as dawning spread over Michael’s face.  
  
“And if you can save her, then maybe all the rest of it’s not such a waste?” his brother asked, compassion spilling over the words.  
  
Lincoln walked back to the window. “Yeah, maybe,” he said gruffly.  
  
Michael got off the bed and came to stand beside him. His hand reached up and squeezed Lincoln’s shoulder firmly. “Fine. We’ll save Sofia, but she’s the last one. Agreed?”  
  
“Hell, yeah,” Lincoln said, a chuckle escaping him unexpectedly.  
  
“Just for the record,” Michael said. “Jane’s coming with us, wherever we go, so whether you give in now or later is up to you. But my advice: don’t waste time. It’s the one thing we know we may not have a lot of.”  



	4. Chapter 4

When the fugitive women arrived back at the hotel where Michael, Sucre, and Sofia had stayed the night before while Jane and Lincoln had done—whatever they had done—Jane sent Sofia up alone. She stayed just outside the lobby doors, out in the sweltering heat of the day, her heart thumping painfully in her chest.  
  
They had run close to five miles Jane guesstimated, but that was not why her chest hurt, or why she couldn’t bridge those last few steps between the first and the tenth floor. If anything was miraculous, the fact that Sofia could make it to the elevator doors with the shoebox carefully cradled in her arms was it. She was not the athlete that Jane was but the pain in Jane’s chest didn’t stem from the exertion; her chest hurt because an aggressive emotion had lodged itself there and she didn’t know how to dispel it.  
  
The hopes of that young girl were pinned on the contents of that folded up piece of cardboard, and what Jane might have found there. In addition to that, she had placed her trust in a man who was as unworthy of it as he was capable of cultivating it.   
  
Jane knew. She knew first hand.   
  
Lincoln arrived at her side only about five minutes after Sofia disappeared inside the elevator, and it was as if a weight lifted off Jane when she saw him. He might infuriate her until the end of time, and he might walk away without ever pursuing what lay between them, but she trusted him, and she knew that that trust was a lifeline. She could depend on that, on  _him_ , and that meant more to her than anything else. The rest of it was superfluous; that she felt an attraction to him that seared away everything else she’d ever felt for anyone else and the very scary idea that she had somehow managed to fall in love with him in the middle of all this didn’t even matter anymore. Just seeing his face, and knowing he was there, that he would always be there in that supportive way, in the way that she most likely would not allow him to fulfill completely—just as she had never allowed Aldo to—strengthened her. Knowing he had her back gave her the ability to never actually need him to save her.  
  
“What the fuck happened?” he asked harshly as he closed the distance between them. He hesitated briefly, but then his hand reached out and grabbed her elbow, the same way it had when she arrived at the hospital the day before. Only it felt different this time, and the way he pulled her towards him made Jane long to fling herself into his arms, the way Sofia had before they had parted company a few hours previously. “Are you all right?” he asked before she could respond to his first question.  
  
“I’m fine,” Jane responded, and her hand came up between them, pressing against his chest. Maybe she was trying to keep space between them, she didn’t really know, but suddenly she felt the warmth and hardness of his body beneath her hand and caresses itched to emerge from her fingertips.  
  
Lincoln looked almost defeated as he dropped his chin to his chest and sighed heavily. Then he released her arm and took one more step forward until the only way for them to not touch was for her to bodily back away from him. When she didn’t move, his arms encircled her and he pulled her tight against his chest, his face nuzzling into the curve of her neck as naturally as if they’d hugged thousands of times. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to, because as close as they were, his body did all his talking for him from the obvious to the more subtle thump-thumping of his heart against hers as he cradled her head in his hand and pulled her completely into him.   
  
He’d obviously been scared, and now he was relieved because she was back, and safe. He’d been scared for her, and Jane’s heart twisted so sharply, her breath caught in her throat. She stood in his embrace for a few silent moments; the only sounds she heard came directly from Lincoln, his breath, his heartbeat, the sound of his hand sliding down her back over the material of her tank top. Her own arms were trapped against her side and between them, and he seemed not to care at all that she wasn’t hugging him in return. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hug him in return, but he didn’t really give her the chance.  
  
As much as she wanted it to go on, and let this be what they both needed, she had to deal with the situation and deal with it quickly. “We have to get Sofia out of here, Linc,” she said, her voice soft, but firm. “We should get Michael and Sucre to take her out of Panama, the sooner the better.”  
  
“Why?” he asked, his voice subdued against her ear.  
  
“Because I know who James Whistler is, and as long as Sofia is here and a possible target, we’ll never get to the bottom of anything.” She loathed easing herself out of his arms, but knowing that here in broad daylight was not really the place for them to have a breakthrough caused her to do it anyway.  
  
As she drew back so their eyes could meet, Lincoln’s hands shifted, clasping her hips gently without actually grabbing her indecently. “Who is he?” Lincoln asked.  
  
The knot in Jane’s chest tightened briefly only to unravel when she announced, “He used to be my partner.”  
  


*

  
  
Lincoln slid Jane’s cell phone from her shorts’ pocket so he could call his brother and instruct him to stay put with Sofia while he and Jane went back to Jane’s hotel. There was suddenly a whole lot for her to tell him, and secretly, he relished the role-reversal, as well as the familiarity between them. The effortlessness with which he’d just held her in his arms, in a totally non-sexual way—though it couldn’t last long because he didn’t think he was really capable of having a thought or intention towards Jane that didn’t eventually end up as a sexual one—carried over when he also patted her down and found the phone on her.   
  
The idea that she needed him emotionally and mentally made him forget for the moment that the sexual tug between them was the strongest he’d ever felt in his life. He wanted to know who James Whistler was to her, and everything else could wait.  
  
“When will your guys get here?” he asked, relaying the question to Jane from his brother through the phone.  
  
“They’re going to call me when they are en route. I wasn’t expecting to hear from them until late this afternoon,” Jane replied.  
  
“You got that?” Lincoln asked Michael.  
  
“Yes, I heard her. So what, we’re just supposed to sit around here all day?”  
  
Lincoln felt sure that Michael’s agitation had little to do with boredom and more to do with the danger of being in one place too long. But as much as the Panamanian authorities might want their star prisoner back at Sona, Lincoln had no worries that they would actually find Michael. They didn’t have much in the way of brains, as far as Lincoln could tell. “That’s what Jane wants to discuss with me. A plan to get you all out of here,” Lincoln said.  
  
“Us all?” Michael questioned. “What about  _you_  all?” he said pointedly.  
  
“One thing at a time, Mike. Come on. I’m not a fugitive anymore. I also didn’t kill Susan, so if anybody gave a shit about her, you’re on their list too. Let me talk to Jane, and then I’ll call you, okay?”  
  
Michael grumblingly agreed, while Jane flagged down a taxi. Then they were off on their way back to the other hotel.   
  
Though he wanted to very much, Lincoln refrained from touching Jane as they drove through the city. His contemplations about their situation swirled through his head.  
  
He had always been a relatively simple person. In his previous life—before Fox River, before Conspiracies and Death and Unending Violence—he’d have thought nothing about bedding Jane, the sooner the better, and for as long as she’d let him. He knew the score, and women like Jane didn’t hang around with guys like Lincoln, at least not for long. Generally, if they found their way into his sector somehow, they were slumming it, and looking for just what he could offer them: a good time and no commitment.  
  
That’s how it had been with every woman in his life except Veronica, because he’d loved her since they were both kids; and Lisa because she’d gotten pregnant with LJ, and they’d actually tried to be married to each other. There were no other women in Lincoln’s list of past lovers who held any distinction because they’d all left through the revolving door they’d entered in by, none of them staying long enough to make a lasting impression.  
  
His simplicity made it easy to disregard them, as they had also disregarded him but there was no such simplicity between Jane and himself. For one thing, their chemistry was too volatile, and for another, what had brought them together was binding. He recognized it for what it was, and perhaps for the first time in his life he understood too well what he was getting himself into. Because he already cared so much, the possibility of emotional devastation loomed before him, the causes ranging from her eventually moving on just like all those other women to her dying, just like Veronica and Lisa.   
  
Michael’s advice, though sound, because Michael couldn’t give anything less than the truth, did little to comfort Lincoln. He found himself wanting to protect her, to have some sort of guarantee he could offer her, so that she in return would offer him some assurance. He hoped that whatever she was about to tell him might lead him to that place, to some sort of security so that it would make sense in his head to send his brother and Sucre and Sofia away while he and Jane finished up this business once and for all.  
  
That he had Michael’s blessing eased some of his guilt over his insane and inconvenient desire for this woman, but it didn’t feel like a solution either. He wanted Michael to be okay, and if he somehow was, and he supported this thing with Jane, Lincoln’s sense of self-protection should have dissolved quite easily. In theory, Lincoln had never been particular in that regard, and in the midst of reckless, impulsive behavior was a place he was most comfortable in anyway. He’d certainly spent plenty of time there. The only explanation for his restraint now was the bloody trail that followed him into Panama. He really didn’t know if he could survive another loss, and that was the bottom line. He needed to keep all the people left standing around him, and they had to be fully functional.  
  
He knew it was foolhardy to think much beyond today as far as anything with Jane was concerned. Both of them could get killed at any time, and assuming they got out of this alive that would be the proper time to worry about whether or not it was real, how long it might last, and what he was willing to do to make it last. But it seemed that was something he was incapable of anymore. Fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Linc had fallen by the wayside. If he went forward, he wanted it all, and he couldn’t see settling for less than that.  
  
So it was better not to take any of it, just to be safe.  
  
As they entered the hotel room, Lincoln could tell housekeeping had been by. The robe he had worn and discarded had been hung back on its hook, but now another matching one hung next to it. More clothes in Lincoln’s size sat folded up on top of the dresser and a note from the concierge read,  _If you need anything else, Miss Phillips, please let me know._  
  
Lincoln looked at it and then raised his eyes to Jane’s. “What did you do to get this guy to kiss your beautiful ass?”  
  
Jane smiled, and he wondered if it was because of his backhanded compliment or just because she had the concierge wrapped around her little finger. “I paid him well. That’s all it takes, really.”  
  
Lincoln paused, looking at the note again before tossing it down on the dresser. “How is it that you have so much money, anyway?” He’d wondered about that when Michael had pulled out a bunch of bills to pay for the ammo that morning; it had been money he’d gotten from Jane.  
  
Jane sat down on the bed, placing her cell phone and gun on the bedside table. She looked up at him and said seriously, “So Aldo didn’t get a chance to tell you about the money, huh?”  
  
Lincoln stayed on his feet, halfway across the room from her. “There were a lot of things he didn’t get a chance to tell me,” Lincoln said, his voice low.  
  
Jane’s face softened, and he noticed her expression changed to one he’d seen her give LJ. She became almost motherly as she said, “I suppose that’s true. He had a lot of money, Lincoln. He saved every penny he ever earned on all of his black ops stuff. He got paid millions for some of the things that he did, but not as much as he made in the last five years since he was actively working against The Company.”  
  
When Jane patted the space on the bed next to her, Lincoln walked over and sat down. “’Actively working’? What does that mean?” he asked.  
  
“He had been trying to bring them down from the inside for over ten years. When that got too dangerous, he had to go rogue—leave The Company without their permission—which made his life open to the highest bidder. It’s actually ironic that that FBI Agent is the one who got him; he avoided capture and assassination too many times for me to count.” Jane reached out tentatively and wrapped her fingers around Lincoln’s hand, which he allowed, he told himself because she was talking about his dead father. “But when it came to you boys, he got reckless, and did things I—“ she stopped talking and just shook her head.  
  
“What?” Lincoln prodded when she failed to continue.  
  
“Let’s just say I had a few arguments with him like I’ve had with you.”  
  
Her thumb slid gently over his knuckles, and Lincoln felt as though he’d gone back in time 20 years to when a simple touch from a girl could create all kinds of havoc within his body. “Maybe if he’d listened to you, he’d still be here,” Lincoln said, swallowing the truth of his statement as it penetrated the air between them.  
  
“We’ll never know that, and there’s no point in what if-ing ourselves. It won’t solve anything,” Jane said, her voice so soft and sweet, Lincoln was hard-pressed to reconcile that this was the same woman who had slammed him into the wall at the hospital. Except that he could remember vividly standing in the shower with her less than 24 hours ago while her capable hands washed his body. Jane was a myriad of things, and Lincoln greatly desired all of them.  
  
He shifted on the bed, but her hand didn’t loosen from around his. “If you think it’s best to get Sofia out of Panama, I agree with you. But I want them to take LJ with them, so is there anyway to stall it out until the end of the week, when he can get out of the hospital?” Lincoln made up his mind right then that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes his father had.  
  
Jane nodded. “We should be able to do that, because I doubt they’re going to kill James Whistler anytime soon. His real name is James Tehaney, by the way. And he’s not Australian; he’s British. And he’s not with them willingly, I’m sure of it.”  
  


*

  
  
The story of James Tehaney, as told by Jane Phillips, made Lincoln wonder how the hell anyone ever got through life. He knew that it was a fucking miracle he, Michael, and LJ were still alive, but with every piece of the puzzle, he understood it was so much more of a miracle than he had first considered.  
  
James had been recruited, like Jane, because he’d served in the Military. While Jane had been with the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, Whistler— _Tehaney!_ —had been a Royal Marine with the British Navy. A decorated soldier generally caught the eye of The Company first, and that was how they had both come into recruitment. They had each been under contract for a couple of years before they were assigned to be partners; their partnership had served a few different purposes. Their undercover work was less detectable because they could pass for a married couple, or even siblings, if need be. James could do a decent American accent, so they had had a few ops like that. As soldiers they were both equal in their ability to protect each other. They were a perfect match as far as The Company was concerned.  
  
As Jane went on with the story, Lincoln found that his arm around her seemed to make it easier for her to talk, and before she finished, they were sitting propped up against the headboard of the bed, with her head tucked up under his chin. He knew instinctively that she was only like this with him and it warmed his blood and messed with his resolve to wait until a better, more convenient time. Strangely, without any detail on her part, he could tell that the emotions she still held for this man were not of a romantic nature; on the other hand, there seemed to be a deep well of hurt underlying his betrayal, but Lincoln had the sense to chalk that up to not understanding that sort of partnership. To place your trust in someone like that, every day, must form a bond of kinship, and Lincoln was wise enough to know he’d never had that with anyone, not even Michael. He’d never had that level of trust with anyone. It was impossible for him to let go that much. Even believing Michael would get him out of Fox River had never fully formed into absolute trust, not until they were actually escaping, and by then it was too late for it truly mean anything.  
  
Jane elaborated on the last time she’d seen James. “Our last mission together was in Vienna. It was typical, could have been a textbook case, but at the last minute, everything went wrong. He was shot in the chaos, and we got separated. I made it back to the rendezvous point and was airlifted out. We were later informed he died at the scene and that his body was being held by the Austrian authorities. The Company has a policy of not claiming their operatives, as you can imagine.  
  
“I was devastated. A few weeks later, your father contacted me. He appealed to me based on my loss. He asked me to consider how little we were valued by The Company and to search my heart about what I did as their employee. It was the right time. I had had enough, and James’ death was just the proverbial straw.”  
  
“How long ago was that?” Lincoln asked.  
  
“Three and half years.” Jane sat up, retreating from his grasp, and Lincoln missed her instantly. “About the time you went into Fox River, your father was recruiting me.”  
  
“So, everyone thought Whistler was dead?” Lincoln asked rhetorically. “Did he fake his own death? What was the purpose? To double cross you, or to escape The Company?”  
  
“That’s exactly what I’m wondering. Perhaps he was offering me up, but I got away, so it went badly. If it was purely to get himself out, I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. We both knew about it, and had talked about The Company’s shady dealings—though neither of us ever made any noise about getting out. It was more like we knew what we were involved in, but it hadn’t gone far enough yet to spur us to anything.” She paused. “But we were partners, we had no secrets from each other,” she said, and then a laugh tumbled from her lips and she shook her head as she moved towards the edge of the bed, further away from Lincoln.  
  
“What’s funny?” he asked.  
  
“Nothing. Nothing’s funny, except that Sofia said the same thing to me about James earlier. They had no secrets from each other—only he’s a master secret keeper. The question is now, however, just what are his secrets?” Jane pushed her hands through her hair, pulling the band free that had held it back in a ponytail. She scratched at her scalp, massaging her thumbs into her temples and weaving her fingers through her hair. “God, I’ve got such a tension headache,” she muttered, mostly to herself.  
  
Lincoln’s eyes became somewhat mesmerized by the golden blonde strands falling over her hands and wrists, but he managed to ask another question and keep his mind on the facts at hand. “Why exactly do you want to get rid of Sofia then?”  
  
Jane shifted, turning back toward him and her knee pressed against his thigh. “If he really cares about her, she’s a pawn to them. They won’t hesitate to kill her or torture her or—well, do what they did to Sara, if it will get him to do whatever they want. And they went to a lot of trouble to get him out of Sona. They don’t want him dead—at least not yet.”  
  
“But you think they will kill him?” he asked, and his hand moved of its own volition to the small of her back, his fingers imitating hers, only pressing warmly into the muscles at the base of her spine while her own fingers slipped down her neck and continued to try to relieve her tension.  
  
“Sure, if he won’t do what they want, or when they get whatever information from him they want and he’s expendable. Hmmm,” Jane hummed in her throat, her back arching slightly under his hand. “That’s nice, baby,” she murmured, and Lincoln grew hard and hot in one giant rush of feeling.  
  
Before he could formulate another question to ask her, his arm had curled around her and brought her back around to face him. His lips found hers unerringly and she melted against him, soft and pliant and so damn easily, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anyone fall so straightforwardly into his arms. Maybe no one but Jane ever had.  
  
Their lips melded, retreated, and melded again and Jane turned completely into him, her body pressing against his until she was half on top of him. He wanted to slide down so he was prone and then he could deftly roll her beneath him. He wanted it so much that there was actual physical pain that had nothing to do with the blood rushing to his groin.  
  
Jane hands were on his face, and around his neck and then sliding up the back of his head, greedy and caressing, while her tongue parried with his in such a way that he knew no matter what they’d been talking about, really this is all that had been on either of their minds. When she eased herself up and swung her leg over him so that she sat straddling his lap, he automatically moved forward into her. Their shorts rubbed as their middle sections came together perfectly, the thinness of the material leaving Lincoln with little to imagine as their combined heat caused friction without movement. He arched unconsciously and she rubbed herself against him seductively, wrenching a groan from his throat. “Oh, God,” he whispered fervently, his hands somehow under her tank top, and the bare flesh of her back beneath his fingers. He pulled her tightly into him, but broke the kiss, yanking his mouth from hers, though their foreheads rolled together. It left Jane gasping for air, but the sound was filled with longing and pleasure. It skittered through Lincoln’s bloodstream and attempted to rob him of all coherent thought.  
  
“Please, Lincoln,” she breathed, her fingers moving to cradle his face gently. “Don’t say no,” she pleaded, but there was some aspect of strength in her request, because that was the only explanation Lincoln could come up with as to how he got his next words out.  
  
The real fear spilled from his lips and he knew there was no other way to make her understand than the absolute truth. “I’d rather go on starving than know what I’m missing,” he said, his voice rough and uneven. “I want you, Jane. So fuckin’ much, but I just…can’t. I can’t,” he said again and he slid his hands out from under her shirt and placed them on her shoulders, pushing her back from him.  
  
Jane’s blue eyes were dilated, the dark irises overshadowing the lighter edges for the length of time it took her to comprehend that he was putting an end to things again. He waited for her to berate him, since he’d been the one to start things as well as end them, but she only took a deep breath before climbing off of him. She somehow maintained a grace and dignity that made Lincoln want to scramble from the bed and punch the wall, but instead he just swung his legs the opposite direction from her and pushed them over the edge of the mattress.  
  
She shifted behind him and then her arms surrounded his shoulders tightly. She pressed her face against the nape of his neck so that he felt her breath against his skin and he thought she was actually going to say something, but in the end, she didn’t; she just held him until he finally raised his hands and patted her arms awkwardly. The weight of her unspoken words lay upon his heart, and not for the first time he wondered what in the world had happened between them.  
  
He’d never been one to ease an uncomfortable situation, but he’d never been in any situation like this one. Finally, he found something to say that took them back to the earlier part of their conversation. “You said you had fights with my dad like you have with me. You ever slam him up against a wall?”   
  
Jane chuckled and then slowly let him go. He turned his head so he could see her peripherally. “No. He would have knocked me flat. He didn’t have a case of chivalry around me, like you do.” She stayed sitting on the bed, though she moved totally away from him.  
  
“Did you love him?” he asked softly. What he really wondered was if his father had loved Jane. In reality, he couldn’t imagine that Aldo hadn’t. Everything about her called to him, and he recognized why his son was so enamored of her as well.  
  
“I did,” she answered truthfully. “I loved him like he was my father, but I could never take the place of his sons.”  
  
Lincoln’s head swiveled all the way around to look at her. “Were you trying to take our place?” he asked quizzically. It seemed like such a strange thing to say.  
  
She smiled as she got to her feet. “No. I just thought you’d like to know that his only interest in me was because he believed I was so good at my job I could help him achieve his goals.”  
  
“I doubt that was his only interest in you,” Lincoln muttered, getting up from the bed also. When she looked a little affronted, he quickly added. “I just mean, you’re wonderful, Jane. How could he not have appreciated you?”  
  
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she shrugged and moved towards the bathroom. “He was a man, that’s how.”  
  


*

  
  
It had been a long time since Jane had hidden in the bathroom like a teenaged girl. But that’s exactly what she was doing.   
  
She was so fucking in love with Lincoln Burrows, she could hardly think straight, and despite the fact that he was pushing her away physically, she’d never in all her life had someone pull her in tighter emotionally through rejection.  _I’d rather go on starving than know what I’m missing_. Not her, she thought, though the implications of that one sentence only made her crazier about him. She vowed that she would live, if for no other reason than to bed down with Lincoln and have a shot at making sure he never went hungry again. Beyond that, she thought she might actually want to love him for the rest of her life.   
  
“Jane?” He knocked on the bathroom door, and the tone surrounding her name held concern. She had no idea how long she had been in there battling her thoughts and feelings for a clear, collected mindset that would allow her to do her job effectively.  
  
She opened the door and pasted a big smile on her face. “Shall we go explain this whole thing to your impatient brother?” she asked enthusiastically.  
  
Lincoln’s eyes widened, and she knew she’d taken him by surprise. “Well, sure,” he hedged. “Though I’m not really clear on what we’re doing, other than you think getting Sofia outta Panama is the safest thing for her.”  
  
“I know Michael doesn’t like being kept out of the loop anymore than you do, but I just couldn’t tell that whole thing to a crowd,” she said, moving around him when he stayed standing right in front of the bathroom door. “I appreciate you listening to me.”  
  
There was some sort of sound from behind her, like a grunt of acceptance, but Lincoln said nothing. She moved to her suitcase, pulling things from it so she could get her laptop out. She looked over her shoulder at him. “When you lose your partner, it messes with your head,” she explained. “You don’t know how many times I went over the scenario: what I could have done differently to save James. The fact that he’s alive—it makes it very personal for me, Lincoln. I have to get his ass outta there, because he’s going to explain himself to me. I might kill him afterwards, but I’m going to hear what he has to say first. It would be best if you all were far away from what’s about to happen.”  
  
“Wait a fuckin’ minute,” he growled, stepping towards her. “I’m not going anywhere. You can send the fugitive, his sidekick, and the girl in danger off, and I’ll be glad to send LJ with them for safe keeping, but if you think I’m going to leave you here alone—“  
  
“I won’t be alone,” she interrupted. “My team is coming, remember?”  
  
He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not leaving.”  
  
Jane tucked the laptop up under her arm. “Why not? You don’t want to be invested here, and I understand that. I sympathize with you. So why not just walk away and let us handle it? If I survive, I’ll come find you.”  
  
She had seen Aldo succumb to anger several times, and the similarities between that and what happened right in front of her eyes as Lincoln’s face got red and his eyes sparked dangerously almost made her grin. She was being honest, and if Lincoln wanted to leave she wouldn’t stop him. But she knew despite his fear, he was not without courage, and he certainly didn’t like the implication that he didn’t care at all just because he wouldn’t fuck her.  
  
What was even funnier was he didn’t argue with her, he just glared at her and then lifted one arm from his chest to point a finger at her. “I’m not leaving, and you can’t make me.”  
  
Jane turned away and muttered, “All right.” The reality was she could make him leave. There were any number of ways to convince him. But she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him there with her, and she wanted him there when it was over. She sat back down on the bed and looked up at him as she lifted the screen of her laptop. “If you stay, you have to make me a promise.”  
  
“I’ll do whatever you say,” he said without prompting.  
  
Jane laughed, surprised by his capitulation. “Well, that’s great, though that wasn’t the promise I was looking for.”  
  
“What then?” he asked suspiciously.  
  
“When this is over, you have to have sex with me. No pulling back, no holding out on me.” She said it while looking him directly at him.  
  
The color that had risen with his anger seemed to drain out of his face with her demand. He appeared to have been struck dumb, too, because he just looked at her and said nothing.  
  
“Promise?” she prompted in the wake of his silence.  
  
“I promise,” he finally said, his tone ragged.  
  
“Good,” Jane said briskly, dropping her eyes to the computer screen. “Now, I’m going to look up a map of the area that you last saw James in, and see what I can find.” Her fingers moved over the keyboard as she signed into her email account. “You call Michael and explain what’s going on to him. Let’s meet up with them again—how about the hospital again? We can see LJ, find out exactly when we can move him and then make the arrangements to get them out of the country.”  
  
Lincoln walked across the room to pick up Jane’s cell phone, but then he stayed standing next to the bed where she was perched. She looked up when he didn’t respond to her outline for the rest of their day. His eyes were somber as he watched her. “What?” she asked gently.  
  
“If we survive this, there are a lot of other promises to make, you know.” The idea seemed to fill him with immense gravity, but Jane felt buoyed up by the suggestion.  
  
“I do know,” she said. Raising her hand she touched his arm softly. “First things first,” she advised, giving him a long, measuring look.  
  
He nodded curtly and then flipped her phone open to call his brother.  



	5. Chapter 5

Over the course of the next five days, even if Lincoln had wanted to be alone with Jane—which he vehemently reminded himself he did  _not_ —it would have been impossible. She spent every minute of every day planning in one form or another. The first order of business had been finding a base of operations, and with Sucre’s help, they had found an abandoned warehouse near the docks that would serve their purposes for the few days they would need it.  
  
The only alone time Lincoln and Jane shared occurred after her team arrived. The assembled group consisted of five people; so with Jane, there would be six to complete what they hoped would be the live rescue of James Whistler. And three of them were women, which somehow curdled Lincoln’s blood.  
  
He tried hard to not let his mouth run away with his thoughts, but he'd never been good at stifling himself, and after one too many failed attempts at diplomatically explaining his worry that two men and four women doing this would only result in carnage, Jane had snapped, “What the hell is wrong with you?” So he told her, and after a screaming match that only ended because Michael and one of the women from Jane’s team followed them into the back room of the warehouse where they had gone to have it out broke it up. Michael grabbed Lincoln and dragged him outside while the woman—only known to them as Gates—held Jane back.  
  
Her last shouted challenge consisted of “Remember when you said you'd do whatever I said? Well shut the fuck up!”  
  
Michael's grip on his shoulders (both hands on both shoulders while he shoved him forward) barely kept him from turning around to go back to take her down.  
  
Once they were outside, Michael tried hard not to laugh, but his inability to keep a straight face pushed Lincoln’s temper even further beyond his control, so Michael dodged a fist and ran back towards the warehouse, yelling as he went, “Just stay out here until you can play nice.”  
  
Lincoln figured he could to walk to fucking Mexico before that happened.  
  
So instead of thinking about how frustrated he was with their tactical plan, he started thinking about LJ, and how he would be getting out of the hospital the next morning. After they picked him up, they were taking him, Michael, Sucre and Sofia to a ferry that would take them to a safe place in Mexico—something that Jane had also arranged. There was already a house for them there, and the plan—if all went well—was for Lincoln and Jane to meet up with them in a few days.  
  
His stomach knotted up at the idea, only because every other plan he’d had since Michael entered Fox River had not ended the way they’d hoped. The harder he tried not to think about it, the more it was on his mind, and the inevitability of Jane going the way of every other woman he knew loomed on the horizon.  
  
Michael reappeared some time later, long after the sun had set, bringing with him a plate of food for Lincoln. “Linc,” he said softly.  
  
Lincoln lifted one hand to ward off a lecture, no matter how well meaning, while accepting the plate with the other. “I don’t want to hear it. Blah, blah, it was better that you knew Sara and lost her, blah, blah. I can’t fuckin’ listen to it again.”  
  
“Don’t be an asshole,” Michael accused, his voice still low, but an edge in it now that proved he was just as raw—if not rawer—from all their losses.   
  
Lincoln looked at the sandwich his brother had made for him and felt tears sting his eyes. Blinking rapidly, he said, “I’m sorry, man.” Dropping the paper plate down on the wooden box he sat on outside the warehouse, he picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “Thanks for making me a sandwich,” he said around a mouthful.  
  
Michael stared hard at him until Lincoln was forced to look him in the face. “Jane made it,” he said shortly, pivoting around on his heel and walking back to the door that led inside. “You don’t deserve it,” Michael shouted once there was a good twenty feet between them. “But she made it anyway!”  
  
If Michael had been looking back at him, he would have seen Lincoln give him the bird. As it was, it made the older brother feel about seven years old, having flipped his brother off behind his back.  
  
Slowly, he ate his sandwich, contemplating all the times he’d let Michael down. Sara felt like the biggest one of all, the one that could never be rectified, no matter how much Michael insisted it wasn’t Lincoln’s fault.  
  
It felt like Lincoln’s fault. Susan had made it clear it was in retribution for his failed attempt at rescue. Sometimes, when he managed to sleep, Sara was there, in his dreams, and he couldn’t hear what she said, but he imagined she blamed him too. If she could see them all now, if she was where Veronica and Lisa were, and they were all sitting around watching as he sent another woman into the line of fire, wouldn’t she tell him to call it off? Vee would. Vee would tell him now, just like she did back at Fox River to call it all off. To make it all stop. She would say that, and goddamn him, he ought to fucking listen this time.  
  
Just about the time he got to his feet to go tell Jane his once-and-for-all epiphany, she was headed out of the warehouse towards him.  
  
He didn’t wait for her to speak, he just said, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Jane. Just walk away. I’ll figure something out to tell Sofia. Don’t do it.” The third time he said it certainly made him feel like he was pleading.  
  
She came to a stop a few feet from him, and in the dim light he saw her fold her arms over her chest. “I’m not doing it for Sofia, Lincoln. You know I need to know why James did what he did for myself.”  
  
“Why? Why can’t you just let them kill him or whatever they’re going to do? Let’s just leave. Let’s just go with LJ and Michael tomorrow. Let’s just get out of here while we still can.”  
  
She shifted her stance, bringing her feet apart slightly so she was planted solidly before him, as though she expected him to use force to get her to agree with him. “I already told you, you should go with them.”  
  
“Dammit, Jane…”  
  
“I’m not Veronica,” Jane interrupted softly. “I’m not going to walk into the middle of Montana without backup.”  
  
That brought him up short, as he suspected she knew it would. He hadn’t told her anything about Veronica, except listing her as one of the many casualties the first night they’d talked, when he’d brought her up to speed. Trying to recover somewhat, he forced a half-hearted snort of derision as he said, “No, you’ll just go into a lion’s den with three other women as back up.”  
  
“Three other  _trained assassins_ , who happen to be women, and two men, also trained as assassins. You really need to get over this whole, ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ mentality, Lincoln. When it comes down to it, I’ve saved your life repeatedly. You have never saved me from anything, except total and complete aloneness.”  
  
Lincoln’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he instantly wanted to recoil from where this could lead. He shook his head at her, maybe as a warning, and then turned away from her. Then he asked the only question he knew the answer to. “Did Michael tell you about Veronica?”  
  
“No,” she replied, shattering his illusion about his brother pulling Jane aside to whisper family tragedies to her. “LJ did.”  
  
The idea that his son had done it instead only seemed to weigh more heavily upon him. Huffing out a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over the top of his scalp. He was so fucking tired. And he wanted to do the right thing, but he just wasn’t sure that fighting this fight any longer was it.  
  
“Lincoln, look,” she continued. “I know you’ve suffered a lot— _lost_  a lot. I know, between you and Michael, we’ve got plenty of reasons to just get out of here and get you both into therapy. But this is my job.  _This_  is what I do. You don’t have to like it, and you don’t even have to deal with it. You are free to leave at any time. But if you choose to stay—if you  _insist_  on staying, you have to let me do this. And you have to trust me. You have to believe I’ll come back to you, because there’s nothing I want more.”  
  
He was so tense the muscles in his back and arms quivered as he waited for her to say the words he knew had hovered unspoken between them all week. It was crazy, and that’s what he wanted to say, but what he felt was exactly what she’d just said. He wanted it more than anything, too. Maybe more than anything,  _ever_ , which was why it scared him so badly.  
  
He couldn’t speak though, regardless. It was all too much, and not enough, at the same moment and he’d never been handy with big speeches anyway. Instead he just turned around to look at her, and then he opened his arms up in invitation.  
  
She didn’t hesitate, stepping forward eagerly and wrapping him up tightly against her. She ducked her head down, tucking her ear against his shoulder, and Lincoln held her as closely as humanly possible. She squirmed against him a few moments later and then gasped softly, “I can’t breathe,” so that he loosened his grasp just slightly.  
  
Finally he spoke, the words wrenched upward from deep down. “I’m sorry.”  
  
He felt her laugh against him, and she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m not,” she said. “As mad as you make me, you also manage to fill me with an equal amount of joy. I haven’t ever had this with anyone.”  
  
He closed his eyes, though there was no one to see the agony that lit his features. He’d had it before, so the odds that he could have it again seemed totally unlikely.  
  


*

  
  
Jane had never gone into an op with the expectation that awaited her at the end of this one. Not just the sex Lincoln had promised her, but the future that seemed to be a part of everything they didn’t say to each other. There was this tension between them that had nothing to do with his anger over her mission, or even the sexual frustration they both felt from not having yet consummated the attraction between them. It was the theme that should have filled those quiet moments between them, but Jane was not willing to say it just yet.   
  
Call her superstitious, but she wanted to tell Lincoln she loved him when they were reunited, not when she was leaving him behind. He and Gates were going to stay at the warehouse to monitor the op via the listening devices Jane’s team had brought with them. If something were to go awry, Gates had secondary protocol to finish up—what they referred to as Casualty Recovery—something that when it had been explained to him caused Lincoln’s face to flush and his jaw to tighten like it was made of iron, but Jane couldn’t concern herself with his psychological well-being any longer. He’d had his chance to leave with his brother, his son, Sucre and Sofia, but he’d chosen to stay, and now he had to live with the consequences.  
  
Not that Jane wasn’t worried about him, because of course she was, and no matter how much of a soldier she was, she couldn’t turn off her concern for him. But she could tuck it away to a place to deal with later because she had to, to be able to complete her job.  
  
So many things had changed for her over the course of the last few days. She’d never been in love before, so the emotion caused all sorts of bizarre behavior. Aldo would have wondered who she was if he could have seen Gates having to physically restrain her from punching Lincoln’s lights out when he expressed his unbelief that four women and two men were an effective op team. In the past, she would never have allowed her anger to get the better of her in front of her co-workers. She knew it had been surprising to Gates, whom she’d worked with many times, because the other woman’s eyes had been the size of half-dollars after she finally released Jane.  
  
She’d turned and apologized to her colleague for her behavior and Gates, ever the intuitive spy asked, “So when’s the wedding?”  
  
Jane had tried for about five seconds to play dumb, but finally she just said, “If I make it out of this one alive, the sooner the better.”  
  
Now, in the pitch blackness that accompanied the hour of 4am, she crawled on her belly across the jungle to the last known location of James Whistler, or as she had known him, James Tehaney. Two distinct clicks sounded in her earpiece, indicating that one of the men working with her, had breached the barrier undetected.  
  
All was going smoothly, and Jane prayed that would continue.  
  
Ten minutes later, they had all penetrated the perimeter on every side without being made. Jane suspected that whoever had been there was now gone, because The Company rarely had such bad security.  
  
She gave her team their instructions via hand gestures and they all made their way toward various points of entry on the building. It wasn’t large, but had a front and a back door as well as upper windows that denoted a second floor, even though there were no outside entrances. Jane and the two men—Johnson and Farrelly—waited on the ground as the other two women—Truman and Wilcox—carefully scaled the building on opposite sides. When they both made entry without noise erupting or lights igniting, the three on the ground made their move, two on the front door and one on the back.  
  
Jane chose to take the back herself because she was smaller and could get away more easily through the more dense jungle on the backside of the building than the men could. The door was locked of course, so excessive racket was about to alert everyone of their presence, if they had truly made it this far without discovery. At the exact same moment she shot out the backdoor handle, the guys on the other side did the same to the front door.   
  
Once inside, Jane was greeted by the voices of the two who had already made it inside from the upstairs vantage points. “It’s all clear,” they shouted in unison.   
  
“The building is empty?” Jane called back, pulling a flashlight off her utility belt.  
  
“No,” one of them returned, and then an overhead light sparked, one that flared and then almost went out only to finally get the power it needed to come on completely. Jane’s eyes adjusted quickly and she looked across to where Wilcox stood. She briskly closed the distance between them to see the body of a lifeless man thrown over another body, but upon closer inspection, Jane realized just as Wilcox said, “She’s alive,” that a woman lay beneath James Tehaney. She and Wilcox exchanged glances and they reached down and carefully removed the dead man, setting him to the side. He was difficult to move, and there was blood everywhere, indicating he had only died within a few hours’ time.  
  
“Are you all right?” Wilcox asked, leaning down towards the woman whose wild eyes showed the fear they could feel rising from her prone body. Her hands and feet were tied and her mouth was sealed with duct tape.  
  
Jane also leaned down as Wilcox began looking for bodily injuries. “We’re here to help,” she said in a soft voice before she reached slowly for the piece of tape. Pulling carefully, she removed the adhesive as quickly as possible without ripping any of the woman’s skin away with it. “It’s okay,” she said as soon as the woman was able to gasp for clean air through her mouth. Wilcox moved around behind the woman and pushed her upright as Jane began untying her wrists. The skin beneath the rope shone bright red, having been rubbed raw, making it obvious that she’d been tied up for weeks. “Can you tell me your name?” Jane asked quietly.  
  
She’d never imagined that if they found James, they’d find anyone else with him, and her first suspicion was that the woman was bait, and that at any given moment she’d feel the final thud of a bullet in the back of her head.  
  
The woman gasped again, and tried to speak but her voice was terribly raspy, as though she had been screaming even though the sound would not have carried far from under her sealed mouth and the dead weight of James on top of her. “Who…who’re you?” she finally uttered, not answering Jane’s question.  
  
Going against everything she’d ever been trained to do, Jane decided to answer honestly just because the fear in the woman’s eyes couldn’t be manufactured. If the last thing she did with her life was give a stranger a moment of comfort in the face of such unadulterated terror, then it would somehow be worth it. “I’m Jane Phillips, and I work with Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows.”  
  
Tears instantly appeared in the woman’s eyes and she gripped Jane’s wrist with one of her now-free hands. “Jane Phillips,” she repeated, her raw, croaky voice reminding Jane of someone who smoked two packs a day. A rusty, slightly hysterical laugh erupted from the woman’s lips and her fingers tightened painfully around Jane’s arm. “Jane Phillips, I’m Sara Tancredi.”  



	6. Chapter 6

Lincoln heard the report back to Gates from Johnson, but the sudden ringing in his ears made him wonder if he’d dropped dead and just didn’t know it yet.   
  
Sara.  
  
Alive.  
  
Sara was alive. And Jane was bringing her back to the warehouse.  
  
He had a moment where he totally blacked out, because one moment he was standing at the planning table next to Gates, and then he was on the floor and she knelt beside him, her hands gently slapping his face. “Hey, there you are,” she said, her voice calm and somehow soothing. “It’s okay.” When he attempted to push himself upright, her hands on his shoulders were quite strong. “You just stay here for a few minutes, make sure the blood is circulating everywhere. You’ve had quite a shock.”  
  
So he lay on the floor, staring up at the rafters of the warehouse, contemplating that not only had Jane made it out alive, but she was somehow bringing his brother’s dead girlfriend back with her.  
  
He’d be embarrassed about the fainting later, he was sure, but for the moment the only thing he felt was uncontainable relief. So much so that he felt his throat and eyes fill with tears, and he fought against the emotion, because he knew that would be even more embarrassing for him than the falling over part had been.  
  
He thought about Michael, standing with a gun in his hand, looking right at Susan while she insisted she hadn’t killed Sara. They’d both said the word  _liar_ , though Michael had screamed it while Lincoln spat it at her with all the venom he could muster. Maybe, Lincoln remembered musingly, he’d called her a lying bitch.   
  
In the end, they didn’t know if it had been Michael’s bullet, or one that had erupted from behind her, announcing the arrival of her back-up team. She’d been dead, and LJ had been injured, and they’d gotten the hell out of there as quickly as they could, miraculously escaping with minor scrapes and bruises. He’d tried not to think of that day very much simply because the image of LJ bleeding so profusely had been the most terrifying experience of his life.  
  
Susan had been telling the truth, at least that one time. Why she’d lied about Sara’s death to Lincoln to begin with would probably forever remain a mystery, but it didn’t really matter. Sara’s living, breathing body mattered.  
  
He’d already reached into his pocket for his cell phone before deciding against calling his brother. Once he saw Sara, then he would let Michael know. Once he knew for sure, with his own two eyes, and touched her. Then, he would somehow find a way to tell his brother without bawling like a baby.  
  
It was the agony of telling Michael she was dead that horrific day at Sona combined with a jubilation that not everyone—not every woman—he knew had died because of him in some direct—or indirect—way. He could hardly whoop with joy because the mother of his child and his high school sweetheart were still dead, and there would be no magic discovery of them somewhere, but even with that heaviness that he could not escape, this was a moment of lightness. This was one time where it hadn’t gone as bad as it could possibly have gone.  
  
He was beginning to feel hope again, and that was a pretty startling proposition after months of bleakness. The sudden colorization of his life meant that Jane hadn’t just been a distraction he would regret for the rest of it.  
  
His only regret now could come in the form of screwing it up somehow.  
  
Funny, how that idea didn’t scare as much as it once would have. He had the feeling now that as long as Jane could punch him when he needed a little humbling, there wouldn’t be much he could do to chase her off.  
  


*

  
  
Jane had wanted to bring Tehaney’s body back with them, so while Johnson, Wilcox and Truman created a stretcher for Sara from the various plant life at their disposal, she and Farrelly used some ferns as wrappings for the body of her ex-partner.  
  
Once he was properly bagged, or at least as sufficiently as he could be in their present circumstances, Farrelly, who had worked closely with James on several assignments as well, asked if he could carry the body. Jane joined the other three in transporting Sara as comfortably as possible, and they began their journey back to the warehouse.  
  
It was no more than three miles, which had been the point when Sucre had helped Jane locate the warehouse in the first place. They made the trip quickly, even with the extra weight. Sara slept the entire time, because once she had relaxed enough to realize Jane and her team were there to help, the exhaustion of her body had finally overtaken her mind.  
  
Wilcox was a medic and she’d made it clear to Jane that Sara would survive; she was in no immediate danger, but she was dehydrated, and the abuse she had suffered certainly left room for infection to bloom. The best thing was to get her back to the warehouse where Wilcox could pump her full of saline and treat her wounds.  
  
When there was less than a mile to go, Jane re-established radio contact with Gates. “We’ll be there in 10, maybe 15 minutes,” she announced. She was winded, though not terribly so. They’d kept up a steady jog, but they weren’t as efficient as they would have been without their bounty. Farrelly followed close behind them, James’s body slung over his shoulder.  
  
“I’ve set up the back room with a cot. Burrows even found some old blankets in one of the upstairs trunks. Says they’re clean.”  
  
“Good,” Jane responded. “Over and out.”  
  
At the mention of Lincoln, Jane finally let herself think about him again, and she felt a flood of warmth in her chest when she imagined how relieved he must be about this news. She wondered if he’d called Michael yet.  
  
Upon their arrival, she saw him standing just outside the door, obviously waiting for them. He walked out towards them, not running, but definitely walking briskly. It was Sara he was most interested in seeing, and Jane felt no jealousy over that fact. She did put her free hand on his arm though, when he reached out to touch Sara. “Let us get her cleaned up, okay?”  
  
“Is she unconscious?” he asked anxiously.  
  
“No, she’s sleeping. She’s been through hell; she was tired.” They started to move forward again and Jane continued, “Come on, let us get her inside.”  
  
He stood between her and Truman, looking down at the pale, blood-stained figure Sara made upon her bed of leaves and ferns. “Can I?” he asked, bringing his gaze up to Truman’s. “Can I take your place?”  
  
Truman gracefully stepped back, allowing Lincoln to move into her position and wrap his strong fingers around the edge of the makeshift stretcher. Jane felt her throat constrict as they walked into the shadow of the warehouse. Soldiers deserved respect, and Jane knew Lincoln was paying Sara some of what she deserved.  
  
Once they were inside the building, things moved quickly. They took Sara to the back room, but after Wilcox got an IV started in Sara’s left arm, she insisted everyone leave except Jane. “She’s a woman, and she needs her privacy,” Wilcox said when Lincoln protested. Jane watched him bite his tongue, quite literally, but then he backed off.   
  
Their eyes connected and she said softly, “I’ll come find you when she can have visitors, okay?”  
  
He nodded, but then paused, gesturing back towards where Farrelly had stopped to set down his load. “Is that Whistler?” he asked.  
  
Jane’s eyes moved over his shoulder, and though she couldn’t see the body, something about it finally penetrated her brain. James was dead, and with him most of the questions she’d hoped to find answers to would never come to fruition. Sudden tears burned her retinas. “Yes,” she replied. “He was already dead when we got there.”  
  
“He saved my life.”  
  
Sara’s voice surprised all of them, and Lincoln physically moved Jane out of his way to get to her. He knelt next to the cot and took one of Sara’s hands in both of his. “Are you all right?” he asked, which irritated Jane a little. They had given him the diagnosis already, and she thought he believed her.  
  
“I’ve been better,” was Sara’s dry reply. “But I’m alive, which I hear is more than you and Michael thought possible.”  
  
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and Jane felt a lump form in her throat. Poor Lincoln. He’d lost too many people to be comforted by the few brief words Wilcox had given him.   
  
“It’s all right,” Sara said softly. “I don’t know much about him, but James saved me. They were just going to leave us there, they were packing up to abandon us, I guess because Gretchen was killed?”  
  
“Gretchen? Who’s Gretchen?” Lincoln asked.  
  
“I believe you knew her as Susan, Linc,” Jane said, moving to stand next to Lincoln’s kneeling form. Sara glanced up at Jane, her brown eyes tired but full of concern as they turned back to Lincoln.  
  
Briefly nodding, he prompted Sara to continue by repeating, “They were just going to leave you there?”  
  
Stoically, she said, “At the last minute, one of them decided he should just kill us—that’s what Gretchen would have wanted, he said. James insisted that that wasn’t true, that Gretchen would have killed us herself if she’d wanted us dead. He pleaded with them, but they wouldn’t listen. They sprayed the room with a machine gun, and he dove over me.”  
  
“Oh, God,” Lincoln breathed unsteadily.  
  
“I still don’t understand how I wasn’t hit. But he bled to death on top of me—there was nothing I could do, my hands and feet were tied,” her voice broke at the end, and Lincoln leaned forward, one of his big hands lifting up to cup her head gently.  
  
He tipped her head forward until their foreheads met. “Of course you would have helped him if you could,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. It wasn’t the decibel that surprised Jane, but the tone. She’d never heard him sound so kind, not even when he’d calmed LJ down over the phone. “You’re gonna be okay, Sara,” he soothed. “Tomorrow, we’ll catch up with Michael. He’ll take good care of you.”  
  
She murmured something Jane couldn’t hear, and then Wilcox, who had been watching the proceedings closely said, “I’m sorry to break this up, really, but she needs to rest, and I need to tend to her wounds.”  
  
Sara nodded, and Lincoln released her, albeit very reluctantly. “She’s right,” Sara murmured. “Infection would be very bad.”  
  
Jane looked at Lincoln’s face just as a slight smile broke over his features. “That’s right, Doc,” he quipped, and Jane remembered that Sara was a doctor herself.  
  
He stood up, his hand still holding on to Sara’s. “You get cleaned up, and rest some, and then we’ll call my brother, okay?”  
  
The tears reappeared in her eyes and she nodded vigorously. “Okay,” she agreed.  
  
Lincoln turned to Jane, his hand wrapping around her elbow in a familiar way. “I’ll wait for you outside.”  
  
She nodded, expecting him to leave with everyone else. He hesitated a moment, causing Jane to look at him more closely. Then he leaned into her, brushing her mouth with his very softly.  
  
He didn’t say anything as he exited, and Jane was speechless herself, so surprised by the gesture she barely restrained herself from lifting a hand to cover her lips in disbelief. Then she heard Wilcox laugh softly as she seated herself on a box next to Sara’s cot so she had a good advantage at tending to the lacerations on the patient’s arms and legs. “You lucky bitch,” she muttered good-naturedly, giving Jane a wink and a smile.  
  
The small grin that blossomed of its own accord on her face made her forget for a short moment that James Tehaney was dead, and that she somehow would have to mourn him all over again.  
  


*

  
  
Lincoln went outside, heading back to where he’d camped out the day before when he and Jane had argued so viciously in front of everyone. It seemed like a lifetime ago; in fact, everything felt so disjointed, he wondered if his life could ever make sense again. He had to believe that once they met up with Michael, Sofia and LJ in Mexico, things might start to feel normal again, but on the other hand he knew he would have to tell Sofia that Whistler was dead, and he dreaded that.  
  
And he’d died protecting Sara. That somehow made him a hero, when Lincoln couldn’t help but think he’d caused all the problems to begin with. Just like so many of the steps along the way, he knew it was just one more thing he wasn’t going to know for certainty. It was like him and Michael burying their father on the side of the road just north of the Mexican border. There was no answer, really. It just  _was_.  
  
It was still the darkest part of night, but dawn would soon be upon them, and then they could make plans to get the hell out of Panama once and for all. Sitting on the wooden palettes that had been deserted long ago, he was lost in thoughts of Michael’s reaction to the news when Jane approached.   
  
“Sure is dark out here, isn’t it?” Her voice startled him at first, but then he reached a hand out, and told her to follow the sound of his voice. There was hardly any light at all, though he could vaguely remember being able to see her better the day before when they’d talked here. There had been a light overhead somewhere, but it must have burned out. That seemed like a odd tribute to Whistler’s sacrifice. Her hand found his fingers, and they gripped each other tightly. Lincoln got to his feet so he could hug her, and the soft warmth of her body pressed to his brought on other tactile memories of her bare skin, and her perfect breasts, and her amazing ass.   
  
Funny, how quickly he could move from wondering how freaked out his brother would be when faced with news he’d never expect to dwelling on the desire that flowed so freely in his veins whenever Jane was in the vicinity. He supposed he had at one time wanted Veronica as fiercely as he wanted this blonde-haired warrior, but at the moment he couldn’t really recall a time. Things with Veronica had always been gentler.   
  
He’d never headbutted Vee. And he’d known her for almost 10 years before he’d ever touched her sexually. Things were very different with Jane. Faster. Volatile. Scary as hell.  
  
“How are you?” she asked.  
  
Lincoln’s hands moved over her camouflage-covered back, the heavy-duty button-up shirt and cargo pants she’d put on before she’d left for the jungle reminding him that no matter what he thought of her, she’d seen and done things he could only imagine. “I’m fine,” he said, running his hands downward cautiously. He really wanted to cup her ass in his palms, but he thought, from her tone, right now might not be the time to make a move like that. “What about you?” he asked, practicing great restraint.   
  
Her head was tucked into his neck, her arms securely around his waist. She rubbed her cheek against him and he heard her sniff. “I’m sad,” she answered honestly.  
  
“Oh, baby,” he breathed, lifting one hand to cup her head firmly against his body.  
  
“I mean…I’m glad we found Sara. I’m so happy for your brother. But—I really wanted my chance with James. I wanted to understand. Now I don’t know what to think. He did a brave good thing for her, but what about everything else?” She sighed, the sound even sadder than her voice. “It’s all so messed up.”  
  
Her confession seemed to be the catalyst for all the emotions she’d kept inside and he felt her chest shudder against his and then she was crying, and her fingers dug into the small of his back as her grief found its outlet. He held her more tightly, unsure if that was really what she needed. He was pretty much helpless as to how to handle it. Her tears surprised him; not because he thought she'd never cry, as strong as her personality was, he was certain she felt everything intensely, but up until now she’d been good at controlling it.  
  
Suddenly, he was not. Well, really, he'd never been one for self-control, but it was Jane's wet face against his neck that made him need to give up the fight. He let go of all the things he'd clung to over the last six days. All the reasons he’d ever denied her, and himself, of the closeness they both craved. In the pitch blackness, in the shadow of an old decrepit building, he crossed over.  
  
His lips stopped the flow of words, her explanation as to why she shed tears over James Whistler’s death evaporating in the warm air between them. Cupping her face in his hands, he tipped her head back, slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply. If his intent was not obvious from the passion in his kiss, his hands quickly unfastening her camo button up shirt brought her up to speed, and he knew the exact moment when she realized what he was doing, because her fingers were there too, on the buttons of her own shirt, helping him get his hands to her flesh more quickly.  
  
She dragged his palms upward from the last button and pressed them over her breasts. The soft mewling that rose up in her throat and sounded against his tongue made his urgency increase stratospherically so that as he shoved her bra out of his way, he was also leaning down to clamp one arm around her bottom to hoist her up so that he could find the soft mounds with his mouth. As his tongue divided its time equally between her pert, aroused nipples, his name broke desperately from her lips and he thought the confinement of his jeans might be all he needed to prove she reduced him to nothing more than a walking orgasm.   
  
He mumbled against her sweet tasting skin—he told her how much he wanted her, how much he  _needed_  her, but he was sure she couldn't hear him because his mouth was too full of her rounded flesh to be audible. He knew she understood though, because he felt her loose-fitting camo pants flap against his legs as she shimmied her way out of them.  
  
Her fingernails gently scored the back of his head and down his neck as she whispered his name again, and then he heard her gasp, "Your belt—I can't reach it! Your bel—oh, God, yes, please," but that was in response to his jean-clad knee sliding between her legs, the rough denim hitting in all the right places. He could feel her heat and all he wanted was to be  _there_ , and to be there  _now_ , to not have anything between them anymore.  
  
In the end he found his way a few steps to the right so that he could press her against the warehouse wall, and her knees fit snugly around his hips, holding him securely, though her feet were helplessly tangled in her pants and underwear. It didn't matter because they made do with how it was, and as he jerked the front of his jeans open, tugging them down and almost hurting himself in the process, all the awkwardness was forgotten as he slid inside her. The inferno that had erupted between them from the moment his forehead connected with her bottom lip reconverged right then and he dropped his head forward on a groan, the tight, wet warmth of her almost more than he could bear.  
  
Her lips brushed at his forehead, gently, reverently, and though she said nothing, he knew she was relieving that first moment as well. It had been inevitable. He should have known then that the only way it could go would be just as it was happening right here and now.  
  
In less than three months everything had changed. He was no longer a dead man walking, and with his cock deep inside Jane Phillips, he thought perhaps he was more alive than he had ever been before. She urged him on, the sounds she made in response to each plunge of his hips made him think it would be the last one, but just as the rush of it overtook him, her hands framed his face, and their mouths came back together. Moaning feverishly in total harmony, he pushed one more time and she stiffened in his arms, and they dove over as one.  
  


*

  
  
Jane’s heart thundered against her ribcage, and she thought if there’d been any light at all, she would have seen stars circling over her own head.  
  
Boy. She’d known it would be heavenly, but she still felt overwhelmed, and unprepared, and the tears that had started because of James continued to flow because of Lincoln; because of the intense way he made her feel, like everything in the world was suddenly newer, brighter, sharper.   
  
She inhaled deeply, still trying to calm her own pulse, and stop the sobs shuddering through her body. The aftermath was sweet with his forehead resting on her shoulder, and his hands still holding her thighs around him while his thumbs gently stroked the outer edges of her legs.   
  
Her own hands traveled the length of his neck, the soft skin there as delicate and fine as a baby’s though it was exposed to the sun every day since he barely had any hair. She suddenly wondered what he would look like if he grew his hair out.  
  
His lips moved over the skin just inside the collar of her shirt, which hung open, but had somehow remained on her shoulders. She was glad because if any of her team came looking for them, at least her shirt was long enough to cover the major parts she had exposed for their mutual pleasure. When he finally lifted his head, his own breath finally returning to normal, he said heavily, “I didn’t intend for it to be like this.” Shifting her slightly, he hopped a little, and though Jane knew she wasn’t overly heavy for her size, she imagined her fully sated body must feel like a ton of bricks to him. “This wasn’t as—“ he paused, and because of the darkness, she couldn’t see his expression.  
  
Jane filled in the blank herself. “Romantic?” she offered.  
  
He chuckled a little, his hands squeezing her thighs warmly. “I was actually going to say ‘sanitary.’”  
  
“Oh, right,” she said, sharing the laughter with him. With his help, she eased her legs from around him, and got her feet back on the ground. “I was thinking about the dirt the  _whole_  time.”  
  
“Longest five minutes of your life, huh?” he asked self-deprecatingly, and she could hear the smile even though she couldn’t see it.  
  
She found his waist in the darkness and wound her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “Best five minutes, anyway,” she said sincerely.  
  
Again, his lips descended, finding her mouth quite accurately considering how low the visibility was, as well as keeping her from saying anything further. While he kissed her thoroughly, his hands covered her exposed bottom, sliding up under the shirt tales that had been between her bare skin and the building wall. He kneaded her ass while his lips and tongue moved languidly over hers, and the combination made Jane wish very much that they had a more sanitary environment, just for the sake of a place to lay down and start all over again—not because she wouldn’t do him repeatedly against a wall, but because she was exhausted, and they could hardly think their privacy would last long.  
  
When he came up for air a moment later, she whispered, “I wish this could last forever.”  
  
He didn’t respond immediately, but his hands continued to move over her body as though he was trying to memorize everything about her. “Maybe it can,” he whispered back.  
  
Her heart started thudding heavily again because he meant something different than she did, and she didn’t expect him to be willing to acknowledge it quite yet. “I meant this being half-naked stuff. We have to go back inside. And I think Sara needed to place a phone call, remember?”  
  
“Oh,” he said, and she could hear the embarrassment in his tone. “Right.” They both reached down to pull her pants back up at the same time and their heads clunked together.  
  
Jane started laughing, a little too loudly considering it was the dead of night and she didn’t want to draw attention to their location anyway. Holding her head with one hand, she tugged her pants up with the other while Lincoln helped, and he shushed her, though his own chuckles erupted at the same time. “That was just perfect,” she wheezed a moment later, as she put her head against his chest.   
  
Lincoln’s hands were deftly refastening her bra, which impressed her greatly as it was a front closure and he was doing it all by touch. When his thumbs took a sidelong route over her nipples, she pushed him away and said, “Don’t start it when you can’t finish it.”  
  
She began buttoning up her shirt as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and started walking them both back to the door of the warehouse. “Trust me, I can finish it. Any time, any place, baby.”  
  
“Did you zip up your pants?” she asked, passing her hand over the front of his jeans.  
  
“Yes,” he said, grabbing at her hand and jerking it away. “Don’t start something  _you_  can’t finish,” he retorted.  
  
“You have no idea what I’m capable of. Just wait.”  
  
He pulled her tight against his side as they got to the door. “I’m counting the minutes, believe me.”  
  
As she opened the door and a little light poured out on them, she stood up on her tiptoes so she could reach his mouth. “Thanks for keeping your promise,” she said, smiling against his mouth.  
  
As they got through the door, Gates was standing nearby. “What promise was that?” she asked nosily.  
  
Jane shrugged her shoulders, intending to leave her co-worker in the dark about what she meant, but the arm around her shoulder moved and Lincoln’s hand clamped over her mouth as he said, “Oh, she made me swear I’d have sex with her if she made it out this whole thing alive.” Gates’ mouth dropped open, her eyes rebounding from Jane’s face to Lincoln’s. “I’m a man of my word,” he added cheekily.  



	7. Chapter 7

Lincoln stood awkwardly next to Sara’s cot, watching while she cried into the cell phone she had pressed tightly to her ear as she spoke to his brother for the first time in three weeks. Lincoln mused that three weeks was nothing when you considered time, but the sounds Michael had made when Lincoln broke the news to him made him wish he’d talked to Sucre first, so Sucre could have gotten his brother a paper bag to hyperventilate into.  
  
Lincoln’s voice had always worked to calm Michael throughout their lives, but this was an instance when he wasn’t sure he had any power over his brother. All the power seemed to have transferred to this beautiful, beat up woman whose ankles and wrists were wrapped in white bandages. He knew she had other injuries in places his eyes couldn’t reach, and he worried about the ramifications of those injuries. When she hung up the phone, he ended up scooping her into his arms, lifting her from the cot (because it couldn’t have supported their combined weight) and holding her blanket-wrapped body on his lap while she continued to cry.  
  
Jane came and stood in the doorway for a moment, her eyes seeking his. He said nothing, and she left as quietly as she’d arrived, giving Sara the privacy she needed. She didn’t need to tell him specifically what caused her tears, because there were any number of things that had balled together, causing her to feel a dynamic combo of misery/happiness/discomfort/relief. Never having been one who needed to talk much, he felt fine about not exchanging words with Sara in the moment. She needed to be comforted, to feel safe, and he could do that, sitting on the concrete floor with her on his lap. He didn’t need anything explained to him for him to know this was what she needed.  
  
In some ways, he suspected he needed it too. Michael would need it once they were reunited, and LJ and Sofia no doubt needed it too. They all needed unconditional love. They all needed to know that they were not alone.  
  
Jane had said she needed the same thing, and that Lincoln had somehow given that to her without even trying, without even meaning to. His throat felt tight, the emotions that had been brewing for some time clogging there and threatening to leak from his eyes, right along with Sara’s tears. Maybe it was the effortlessness of it all that made it so right. Maybe it was the circumstances that made it what it was, because certainly if Veronica hadn’t been murdered and they’d still managed to escape Fox River and Sona, Lincoln imagined he would have tried to be with her again.  
  
What was that saying? When God closed a door, He opened a window? Lincoln wasn’t good with quotes either, but he knew when something made sense, when it fit.  
  
He also knew he was in love with Jane Phillips, and not just because he’d finally had carnal knowledge of her only an hour before. It was all the pieces, and how they had come together. It was lives extinguished, and lives preserved, and it was here and now.  
  
It was the effect of James Whistler being in Sona, and Jane’s tie to him, and Sara’s return from the dead, and Lincoln’s absolute surety that while so many questions would have to go unanswered, so many other things had been made crystal clear.  
  
Pressing his lips into Sara’s grimy hair, he whispered, “Shhhh, it’s all right. You’re all right, honey. Safe and sound. Safe and sound.”  
  
She shifted against him, her face burrowing more tightly into his chest, and the arm not wrapped in the blanket because of the IV still in it lifted, wrapping around his neck warmly. “I know,” she whispered. “I’m all right,” she said in a regular voice, though the roughness of her tone let Lincoln know she must have screamed, and screamed, and screamed for help at some point. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for staying here with me.”  
  
“Where else would I be?” he asked with a hint of flippancy.  
  
Sara leaned back slightly so she could look into his face. “I don’t know, somewhere with Jane, maybe?” She watched him closely, and if he could have squirmed without her feeling it, he probably would have. A small smile broke over Sara’s face. “What’s with the men in your family finding women in the strangest places, huh?”  
  
Lincoln couldn’t resist the grin that spread over his own features. “Before Michael came to Fox River, we were really normal, honest.”  
  
“I doubt that, very much,” Sara said, sitting upright. Lincoln helped her to her feet and she pointed towards the cot. “I’d like to lay down again.”  
  
Once she was settled comfortably, he took her hand in his and knelt next to her makeshift bed. “As soon as we can go buy some ferry tickets, we’ll get outta here. Can’t fly,” he said, answering the question he thought she might have. “No identification for you and me, and we don’t want the hassle of that, now do we?”  
  
Sara shook her head, her puffy eyes drooping sleepily. “No,” she said in agreement.  
  
Lincoln brushed the hair off her forehead. “You rest. We’ll see how soon we can get out of here, and depending on the timeframe, maybe we can rent a motel so you can take a shower. How’s that sound?”  
  
Her eyes popped open again excitedly. “That would be wonderful. I feel so gross.”  
  
Chuckling, Lincoln leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Rest. We’ll decide where we’re going, and I’ll come wake you.”  
  
Leaving her sleeping was the only way he could, in good conscience, walk out of the room, but all the same he pointed to Wilcox once he was in the outer portion of the warehouse. “Will you go sit with her? In case she needs anything?”  
  
Wilcox had all her medical supplies in a small, wheeled bag-like cart that she pulled behind her. “Sure thing. I’ll need to give her more saline here pretty quick anyway.”  
  
Giving the medic a thumbs up, Lincoln continued on his way over to Jane, who sat at the table with her laptop in front of her. She looked up as he approached. “Sara okay?” she asked.  
  
He nodded, the urge to touch Jane’s face and slide his hand into her hair, which she’d taken down from the ponytail it had been in, was too overwhelming for him to resist. His fingers found the back of her neck and he squeezed her flesh gently. “She’ll be okay. She’s still pretty shook up. And she needs a shower.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jane said. “I already thought of that.” Pointing to the computer screen, she turned her eyes back to it to show Lincoln what she’d found. “I booked passage for you, me, Sara and Wilcox on the ferry that leaves today at fifteen hundred. But we should get a hotel room so Sara can get somewhat presentable, and I can find her some good traveling clothes.”  
  
Lincoln’s thumb stroked back and forth on the side of her neck, and he saw through the pale strands of hair a red mark that must have been the result of his mouth on her skin. He smiled when he realized that was why she had taken her hair down, to cover the unintentional bruises he must have left on her neck and throat. His groin tightened at the idea of more marks in other areas. He wanted a powerful light to examine her breasts and hips with, because he was certain evidence of his presence must be there as well. “Fifteen hundred? What is that? Four o’clock?” he asked, trying to translate military time in his head.  
  
Jane’s lips quirked slightly. “It’s three o’clock, actually. Close.”  
  
Rubbing his thumb slowly over the hickey on her neck, he asked, “Is there enough money in the fund for two hotel rooms?”  
  
Jane looked up at him, her cheeks pinkening instantly from the thoughts that must have followed his request. “Everyone will know what we’re doing,” she said lowly, glancing around at the other team members who were spread out around the great room.   
  
“So?” Lincoln asked. He didn’t give a fuck if they knew he was half-hard right then, much less that he wanted more time to have sex with Jane, and the idea of her on clean white sheets without any fear of interruption was enough to bring him to full arousal.  
  
“Lincoln…” He supposed she thought this was a valid protest, but her soft voice wrapping around the sound of his name only inflamed him further.  
  
Leaning down, he tipped her head back and planted his mouth over hers. One of her hands instantly came up, grabbing at his shoulder to push him back, but very quickly her flat palm changed as her fingers started digging into him. He pushed his tongue skillfully into her mouth, the sharp plunging of it mimicking the thrust of his cock into her body not so very long ago. His temperature soared and he was dangerously close to dragging her back outside, sunrise or no sunrise.  
  
She returned the kiss too eagerly for him to believe she wanted to deny him, though when she pulled her mouth from his, he knew she still had the capacity to be sensible. They didn’t  _need_  two hotel rooms. They only needed one where Sara could shower and change, with Wilcox there to assist. Anything else was a luxury that still had a time limit on it, even though at this point, it was a 9-hour time limit, and Lincoln figured that was enough time for him to come at least five more times. Jane could probably have three times as many orgasms in that length of time, and he would be happy to see to it. “Okay,” she said shakily, and Lincoln’s gut clenched so painfully, he knew he wouldn’t be able to walk away easily for at least ten minutes.  
  
Words jumped to the tip of his tongue, the urge to tell her how he felt almost as strong as his primal need to get her alone, and naked, as soon as possible. Instead of blurting it out for their entire audience, he asked a question that was necessary for his brother. “There’s not an earlier ferry?”   
  
Jane shook her head. “No, because it’s Sunday. The other days of the week, one departs at regular four hour intervals, but today, there’s just the one at 3.”  
  
He smiled, shifting his fingers from the back of her neck to the plump fullness of her bottom lip. “Then let’s utilize our time, okay?”  
  
She nodded, and the slightly breathless quality of her “Yes,” made him walk as normally as possible, but as quickly as possible, back to Sara’s room. It was time to load up the patient and Wilcox and leave the warehouse, and the other team members, behind them permanently.  
  


*

  
  
To say that Lincoln was a voracious lover was to say that it was hot in Panama. To say that Jane wasn’t sure if containment of the beast could ever now be recovered was to say that as she came down from her third orgasm in less than two hours she thought that if she died right now, that would be just fine.  
  
He snuggled next to her, his breath heavy and warm on her shoulder, and Jane struggled to hold in her tears because the sheer joy that ran through her just then threatened to overwhelm her completely. She was beyond exhausted as well, so she knew that added to her inability to suppress her emotions.  
  
It seemed ironic that the hunger she felt for him only increased with each feeding. More sex didn’t make her more satisfied, it made her need him more, want him more; it made her feel so out of control as to feel that power was only an illusion she had once had. The illusion was now shattered and laid figuratively at Lincoln’s feet. It had started on a roadside in Colorado, but Jane imagined it would be something she would have to get used to again and again if she chose to stay with him.  
  
“Don’t go to sleep,” he commanded, the rumble of his voice lost in the cloud of her hair. He had tucked himself around her, and though she could tell his cock had not yet recovered from their latest activities, evidently his mind had already moved on.  
  
“I’m exhausted,” she said, a yawn accompanying her statement. “Even before you wore me out,” she elbowed him gently as she referenced the two rounds of intercourse they’d had as well as the treatment he’d given her to the hands down best oral sex she’d ever experienced. “I had run six miles, and been up most of the night on a covert op, remember? I’m not superwoman.”  
  
His face burrowed into the back of her neck and he whispered, “Oh, but you are,” against the sensitive skin behind her ear.  
  
“Mmm-hmmm,” she said, feeling herself drift away despite his protests.  
  
She jerked awake what felt like just a few minutes later, but when she looked at the clock on the bedside table, she realized she’d been asleep for a couple of hours. The only thing that made that okay was Lincoln’s deep breathing, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against her back and the fluttering of her hair with his exhalations.   
  
She shifted just slightly, reached for her phone and dialed Wilcox’s cell. “Yes?”   
  
Talking very softly, Jane asked, “Is everything okay over there?”  
  
“She’s sleeping like a baby. After her shower she climbed right into bed and she’s been resting peacefully ever since. I figured I’d make sure we were all up and moving by fourteen hundred hours.”   
  
Jane noted that Wilcox’s voice was clear and strong, and she wondered why the woman wasn’t sleeping as well. “You get some shut eye too,” she admonished. “The rest of the team is watching the hotel. If there’s anything odd, they’ll let us know before we depart.”  
  
“Are  _you_  sleeping?” Wilcox asked, and Jane could hear the smile in her tone.  
  
“As a matter of fact, yes, I am. I just woke up and wanted to check on Sara.” When Wilcox’s soft laughter came through the phone, Jane muttered, “Shut up,” and then disconnected the call. She become aware that Lincoln had also woken because there was an insistent part of his anatomy prodding the curve of her bottom.  
  
After tossing the phone onto the bedside table, she ran her hand down the arm around her waist. His hand lay in a cupped position between her legs, and she didn’t remember it being there when she’d fallen asleep, so she wondered if he’d done it on purpose, or if it had been an instinctual thing that happened once he’d gone to sleep too. There were so many things she wondered about him, so many questions to ask him. She thought that perhaps a lifetime was how long it would take to learn all she wanted to about him. Turning her head, she asked, “Do you like to dance?”  
  
His lips moved against her neck, his tongue snaking a damp line down to her shoulder. “Is that a fancy word for sex?” he asked, grinning against her skin.  
  
“No,” she said, reaching down to move his hand so she could turn over to face him. “It’s a word for ‘dance.’”  
  
“I like to slow dance,” he said, his lips rubbing at hers as she shifted in his arms. “If it leads to sex.”  
  
“Hmmm,” she said, her eyes watching his carefully as he continued to lightly touch his mouth to hers. “I imagine you like anything that leads to sex,” she said in between kisses.  
  
A small frown appeared between his brows. “You do realize I haven’t had any sex in a long time, right? I’m not just a pervert or something.”  
  
Startled into laughter, Jane skimmed a hand down his side, reaching around to cup one butt cheek to pull him into her just right. “Not  _just_  a pervert, huh? What a relief!”  
  
“Ha,” he groused, his hand lifting her thigh up over his hip so that his cock could fit between her legs. He shivered as their bodies came together and Jane closed her eyes as he pushed inside. His width was enough to cause some discomfort as she wasn’t overly wet yet. “This okay?” he asked, his voice suddenly gravelly. Her eyes opened, and because their faces were close together, she could see the desire he felt mixed with concern for her, and that was a much bigger turn on than she could have anticipated.  
  
She nodded, because words weren’t so easy to come by just then. Once he was all the way in, he didn’t start moving. Instead, he lifted a hand to her breast and began stroking her nipple with the pad of his thumb. Jane’s hand stayed resting on his ass, and though the thought that she ought to do something in return occurred to her, she became so lost in Lincoln’s eyes that other motor function ceased being possible.  
  
There was the obvious beauty of his eyes, the deep cobalt blue, the dark fringe of naturally curly lashes that framed them making her envious even as she admired them, and the web of lines that radiated from their corners. His face had such character, the smooth and rough places matching his personality exactly. He was the extreme of all things to her—such a thorough lover that she thought perhaps he was trying to kill her with pleasure, but then he could make her so angry she could actually remember wanting to choke him in the heat of the moment—and she felt fear when she considered both a life with him and one without him.  
  
Without conscious thought she lifted a hand to his mouth, tracing over the soft fullness of his lips before stretching her neck towards him to brush her own lips against them. He didn’t close his eyes, even as she got closer, but instead let her weight settle into him as he rolled over onto his back, pulling her on top of him as he did so. Jane closed her eyes as she deepened the kiss, because for all the characteristic beauty she could list about his eyes, more than anything the emotion in them was what quickened her body and made her heart race, and scared her all at the same time. Her breasts rubbed against his chest as his hands moved down her body, cupping her ass and shifting her against him so that he was fully seated again inside her. With a whimper escaping her throat, she gripped his lower face, her fingers cupping his jaw as his mouth opened and their tongues met softly.  
  
She moved against him, her hips recoiling just enough to cause their breaths to speed up, and then Lincoln growled, the sound in his chest moving through her body as well. His hands moved suddenly, gripping her upper arms to push her upright. This, of course, changed the feeling and position entirely and he groaned her name, a breathy “Yeah, baby,” following it as she used the placement of her knees to move up and down on him, once, twice, and then swiveling her hips to the right as she came back down on him the third time.  
  
Bracing herself against his shoulders, she placed her hands flat on him, and then she controlled the rhythm entirely, slamming herself down on him until the sounds of their sweat slicked skins coming together, and the squeaking of the mattress coils spun together in a crescendo, topped off by their mutual cries of release.  
  
Jane’s head dropped forward, hanging between their bodies as she gasped for air, when Lincoln’s arms circled her, pulling her back down so that she lay flat on top of him. His hands slid up her back, sinking into her hair, and tugging her head back until their eyes met. Then he said what Jane never dreamed he’d say. “I love you.”  



	8. Chapter 8

  
With his hands tangled in her hair, holding her face directly over his, he made the declaration for two reasons: one, because it was true, and two, because he knew she loved him too. He wanted her to know they were on the same page.  
  
He could tell he’d surprised her, but her lack of response immediately started to make him feel uncomfortable. He was soft now, but still snugly inside her body, and she was draped all over him in the way that only a completely satisfied woman could be. But with his announcement, which seemed suddenly louder as well as echoing off the walls of the air-conditioned room, he felt her tense up, and then she said nothing.  
  
Either she had been struck dumb, or she didn’t return his sentiments and at that moment, Lincoln knew which he preferred. He couldn’t have read her wrong; every day for the last six days, no matter what she was doing, he had been able to feel it from her. Several times, he’d been sure she was about to say it, and that had terrified him. But in this moment, it had unexpectedly been the right thing for  _him_  to say, or so he thought.  
  
Her eyes never wavered from his, but she still made no response. Maybe it was only five seconds, but it felt like a lifetime to Lincoln, and just as he was thinking of retracting his statement altogether, her cell phone rang, disrupting the moment even more efficiently.  
  
Jane’s gaze jumped to the bedside table, and then she looked back at him, perhaps a little regretfully. He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t tell, and it drove fear into his heart. Easing herself off of him, she settled onto her knees beside him before she grabbed the phone. As he listened to her side of the conversation, he realized it was nothing more than a check-in from one of the team who had promised to survey the hotel, looking for anyone suspicious or Company-like lurking nearby. Jane said, “That works for me. You’re free to go. Wilcox will meet you back in Colorado in a few days,” and after another short pause, she added, “I hope so, too. Thanks, Gates.”  
  
She closed the phone, but held on to it, the device folded in her hand protectively. Lincoln still lay flat on his back, in just the position she’d left him, and the vulnerability was killing him. He wanted to cover himself, he wanted to sit up and turn away from her, he wanted to do  _something_ , but he felt almost paralyzed with some emotion that was so new as to be unnamable.  
  
Watching the graceful, naked lines of her back, he also longed to bury his face at the base of her spine and his kiss his way up to her neck, but that was hardly what a guy should do when he’d been rejected. And that’s what had just happened, right? She hadn’t said she loved him too, so it was rejection. That was his problem, really. He’d never done this with anyone except Veronica. You know,  _loved someone_ , and he wasn’t real clear on the protocol when someone didn’t love you back. She clearly liked having sex with him, so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. He could have the sex, at least for a while.  
  
The only problem was, he didn’t just want the sex. He didn’t just want  _anything_. He wanted everything—everything that Jane was and would be, and he wanted it with an intensity that took his breath. And he wanted her to want him. To love him. To never leave.  
  
She exhaled loudly, her whole body moving with the sound, and then she looked over her shoulder at him. “Doesn’t this scare you?” she asked.  
  
Lincoln blinked, and then scrambled into an upright position because he didn’t know what was coming, but he felt certain he needed to face it—literally—head on. “What?” he asked softly.  
  
Setting the phone carefully on the table, she pointed at him and then at herself. “This. Us. Whatever this is. I mean, a week ago we were in a different hotel and you wouldn’t have sex with me because I could die. Today, you’re saying you love me. That’s quite a journey in seven days’ time, don’t you think?”  
  
“A lot’s changed in the last week,” he said. He could sense the defensiveness rising within him and he felt helpless to stop it.  
  
“Not really, Lincoln.”  
  
“You’re not dead,” he pointed out.  
  
Jane turned her body toward him, but reached for one of the pillows and held it against her chest, blocking her nudity from his gaze. “No,” she agreed softly. “I’m not dead, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get hit by a bus tomorrow.” She looked up from the pillow in her arms, snagging his gaze firmly with her own. “Is this suddenly okay because Sara’s alive?”  
  
Something that had grown tight in Lincoln’s chest the moment after he’d said he loved her loosened as she asked that question. He felt his shoulders relax, like something had unraveled inside him, something that had been so tightly balled together that its release was more powerful, even than the moment when he’d known he loved her. “No,” he answered. “Well, yes. But no.”  
  
A small smile touched her mouth, her beautiful mouth, and Lincoln wanted nothing more than to lean forward and grab that smile with his own lips. The pity there was misguided, and he had to find a way to explain it to her, even though he’d never been good with shit like this. “Listen to me, Jane,” he said, reaching a hand out to touch the arm that clutched the pillow to her chest as if it were armor, as if something like that could keep him from her now. “It’s hard to understand—for me too. But, it’s like…it’s like…” and then, with an eloquence he never knew he could possess, he was able to give her what was in his heart. “It’s like my world was burning down. Flames everywhere, you know? And suddenly out of the fire, there you were. You came out of nothing, Jane. You took me by surprise, and I know I did and said things, from the very beginning, all wrong.  
  
“But then Sara was alive, and the difference that made…” he stopped for a moment, just trying to rein in his emotions in the same instance he was trying to make them vividly clear for her. “You’ve lost people, too, important people. You know how it is, but losing Veronica, for me, the way it happened—it just,” and here he gave up trying to say it right, because he knew he’d never be able to express what that had done to him. “It just destroyed my faith in anything like this. It’s not that I  _couldn’t_  love you, but that my loving you would be bad, for all of us, but especially you.” He stopped again, and he knew he wasn’t finished, but he didn’t know how to wrap it up, how to bring it all back together. So instead he went back to why he’d told her how he felt in the first place. “But I couldn’t let another minute go by without saying it. Without you knowing it. Because maybe it’s not good, but it’s still how I feel. You did save me, just like you said, but it was more than dragging my ass outta the fire.”  
  
Jane’s eyes shimmered with tears by the time he finished, by the time he didn’t think there were any more words he could string together coherently anyway. So he just tightened his hand around her wrist, and pulled her towards him. She flung the pillow away and threw herself against him, her arms wrapping around his neck speedily. “I love you, too, Lincoln. I love you, too.” She sank her face into the place where his shoulder and neck met and she whispered, “I know it’s good. I know it’s good because it scares me so much, and only the things most worth doing have ever scared me.”  
  
He tried not to get sidetracked by her naked body sliding against his, but the truth was, unleashing his thoughts the way that he had seemed to make his need for her all the greater. Her response—finally!—being what he had thought, what he’d hoped, what he  _needed_ , made desperation claw at him uncontrollably. His lips found the skin of her throat and their continual declarations of love filled the air around them. Before he knew entirely what was happening, they were rolling across the bed and Jane was gasping his name and opening her legs and in the moment of penetration, Lincoln knew she was right. There was nothing but goodness between them, and he wanted it to last forever.  
  


*

  
  
Jane, for all the places she’d been around the world, had somehow managed to never travel by ferry or boat. She found that it was relaxing, but that idea was quickly followed by the knowledge that in all her travels, she’d never gone many places for pleasure. She’d needed to get in, get the job done, and get out, and things like that didn’t include traveling at a leisurely pace through any body of water.  
  
Sara was still recovering, so she was happy to stay in her cabin and rest. Wilcox, for whom Jane hadn’t intended to play nursemaid, had been happy to come with them, but also liked staying below deck.   
  
So with Lincoln at her side, with the breeze caressing her face, Jane experienced a little bit of a holiday. They held hands, they walked around, they sat and watched the passing scenery—expanses of water she’d never marveled at in all her life, but suddenly found more beautiful and breathtaking than she could explain.  
  
In the small shower of their cabin, they made love; both remembering the first time they’d been naked together so vividly that the whispered words of how each of them had wanted to do this, or do that had had them so combustible that by the time Lincoln braced himself against the convenience ledge and pulled her down on top of him, they’d already been in the throes.  
  
She’d teased his cock with her mouth, expressing how much she’d wanted to give him a blowjob that first time and how hard it had been to resist. He had gently removed her from her kneeling position to explain that he could not be expected to stay on his feet during an act like that, either then or now. Turning her around so that her back was flush against his chest, he used soap, water, and nimble fingers to stroke her breasts until she was wild for him, so close to orgasming without him even touching between her legs she’d been aware that her desperate cries were getting increasingly louder and that if anyone could hear her, although powerless to stop it, she would have been humiliated.   
  
He’d rubbed himself intimately against her ass the entire time he’d been marauding her nipples, and his lips had been all over her neck and shoulders, his teeth gently grazing the sensitive tendons, which had only added to her arousal. When he’d sat down behind her, she’d expected him to turn her to face him again, but he hadn’t; pulling her backwards, he positioned them both so that she was able to sink down on him and then place her hands on his knees to give herself leverage. With his hands on her hips and them both already nearly mindless, the actual time to achieving climax had been relatively short-lived, but Jane cuddled on his lap in the warm mist still flowing over them afterwards and they joked about small showers being their favorite place on earth.  
  
It was late in the night, with Lincoln sleeping soundly next to her, that she realized it wasn’t the vacation aspect of the day that made it so pleasurable, it was the feeling of contentedness that rested over her. She was perfectly secure, in a completely insecure world, and that had never happened to her before. In the darkness, her hand found his belly, and she turned, pressing her face into his back, hugging him tightly. Before Lincoln, she’d never even known she could feel this way, and now, understanding that he felt the same seemed to be all she needed to embrace it fully and let it sweep her away.  
  
After their arrival in Mexico the next morning, she stood on the dock, being hugged enthusiastically by LJ while Michael embraced Sara. She felt a little sorry for them, that they didn’t have more privacy as they hugged, and cried, and hugged some more. Then of course, they kissed, and, Jane was sure, they were simply incapable of the restraint that might be expected on a normal occasion. She felt tempted to shout out to the gawkers who were also meeting loved ones coming off the boat that Sara had been through hell, and Michael had thought she was dead, but in the end, she’d had to restrain Lincoln from beating up a pair of young men who wolf-whistled and called out some very inappropriate catch phrases.   
  
Michael lifted his head, as if emerging from a deep dark slumber, and his flushed face didn’t seem to carry any annoyance or regret. Jane remembered what he had looked like before, and there was a startling difference between the sad man at the hospital the first time she’d seen him, and this one who held Sara so tightly. He finally let her go to move forward and briefly, but fiercely, hug his brother. Then he turned to her, and Jane’s surprise at the depth of gratitude so plainly visible on his face made her heart ache all over again.  
  
She wondered, as she hugged him in return, now that she knew what love was, if she would be able to see it plainly everywhere she went.  
  


*

  
  
Lincoln had planned a big speech, something that would bring comfort to Sofia in the wake of Whistler’s death, but he found, that Michael had already handled it. His brother never said anything, but Lincoln got the distinct impression that it was somehow his way of trying to take away the sting from when Lincoln had had to tell Michael Sara was dead.  
  
Sofia was still sad, of course, but she seemed to have accepted it. She was proud that James had died to save Sara, and they had a quiet conversation soon after they returned to the safe house that helped Lincoln know that some family was born to you and others you picked up along the way. He asked her to stay with them, and she agreed. Shyly she asked about Jane, and Lincoln, uncharacteristically shy himself, just told her he couldn’t explain it.   
  
And that was the truth. He couldn’t explain it, and he didn’t want to. He just wanted it to go on, and get better, and always be the thing he never saw coming. With Jane, he expected it would always be a surprise, and he was cool with that.  
  
They soon settled into a routine that worked for all six of them. With Aldo’s endless money, they didn’t have to work, but of course idleness wasn’t really in any of their natures. Lincoln hired someone to home school LJ, because he still had the equivalent of two years of high school left to complete, but Sofia found a teaching job at a local school, Sara started picking up shifts at a clinic about five miles from their house, and Michael drew up plans for a dive shop.  
  
Jane still prowled around like she was on duty, waiting for someone to come out of the shadows. She installed an alarm system on their house, and the gated fence surrounding it. There were video cameras in numerous locations on the property and part of the den was devoted to surveillance. He kind of liked it, though, watching her do what she did. She was beautiful and wonderful, and he knew she did it because it was what she’d been trained for, but also because she loved all of them, and she felt it was her prerogative to watch out for them.  
  
Lincoln was probably the biggest bum of them all, finding his relief in yard work and with Jane’s help, he planted a garden, something he hadn’t done since he was a kid and he and Michael and his mother had had little planter boxes in the window of their Chicago apartment. He spent a lot of time with LJ too, which wasn’t wasted, but once when he brought up how he wasn’t exactly contributing to their family life to his brother, Michael only said, “When I get the go ahead on the building plans for the shop, you’ll be put to good use, so live it up while you can.”  
  
Michael’s smile had been so carefree and childlike, it had sent Lincoln back, to a different time, a time before Fox River and Sona, and he actually bounced the rest of the day. He was rarely in a bad mood these days, but this was more than his normal cheerfulness and Jane noticed. That evening as they climbed into bed, she grinned at him. “You are like a gleeful little boy, today. What is up with that?”  
  
Lincoln reached out, snagging her waist with his palm to pull her closer to him under the blankets. “Nothing is up with that,” he retorted, nuzzling her earlobe. “I’m just a happy guy.”  
  
Jane pulled away from him to peer into his face. “You know, it’s remarkable how pretty a smile makes you.” Lifting a hand, her fingers slid over his chin and jaw, the rasp of his beard loud against her skin as quiet settled over their home.  
  
“Should I go shave?” he asked, ignoring the fact that she’d called him pretty.  
  
“No,” she responded. “No sex tonight anyway, my period came today.”  
  
Lincoln’s mood dampened a bit at that news, but strangely it wasn’t just the disappointment of not sinking himself inside Jane’s body. Aloud he said, “We could still make out,” but he wondered for a moment at what caused the other disappointment. Jane had already been on birth control when they met, but she had continued to take care of the responsibility in the months that had passed since. He’d never said anything to her about it, but the idea that he’d like to have a baby with her solidified the thoughts that had been lingering in his head for a few weeks.  
  
Her impish smile indicated making out would be acceptable, but he changed the subject as he slid his hand under the camisole she wore and moved his fingers softly over the skin of her belly. “Are you happy here?” he asked.  
  
Jane’s gaze had been lingering on his lips, but she looked into his eyes and hesitated before asking her own question. “Am I happy here, with you, or happy here, in Mexico?”  
  
Suddenly unsure, Lincoln shrugged. “Either. Both.” He looked away from her face glancing up at the ceiling fan over their bed. “Either.”  
  
A good-natured chuckle tickled his chin as she leaned into him and pressed her lips to his roughened jaw line. “I’m happy with you. I don’t care about Mexico. I’ve never really  _lived_  anywhere, not since I was 18 and joined the army. I’ve been a nomad for the last 15 years.” Kissing his mouth gently, she pulled her face back just slightly, just enough that her next words could hit his face with each breath she took. “I love being anywhere with you. Wherever you are, that’s my home now.”  
  
Lincoln swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and threw caution to the wind. “You feel like driving to Vegas?” he asked.  
  
Jane blinked, her face dropping further away from his, and he saw the confusion the question caused. Replaying the conversation quickly in his own head, he realized it was hardly the right response to her declaration.   
  
Except that it was. He knew it was.  
  
“Vegas?” she repeated, truly perplexed.  
  
The hand on her waist moved to the small of her back, pulling her into him more intimately. “Yeah, we just get in the car and drive up there. First thing tomorrow.”  
  
“What’s in Vegas?” she asked suspiciously. “You want to play Blackjack with your father’s money or something?”  
  
Lincoln shook his head, laughing softly. “No. No!” he repeated when she arched an eyebrow at him. “There’s other reasons people go to Vegas.”  
  
Jane’s eyes wandered over the plains of his face, and then she propped her head up on her hand, staring hard at him. “You want to catch a Celine Dion show?” She almost got it all the way out before she started laughing, but then the image of Lincoln at a Celine Dion show must have tickled her funny bone just right because she ended up leaning into him, resting her head against his chin as she tried to gain control. “I’m sorry,” she gasped a minute later, tears of mirth leaking from her eyes. Her giggles were infectious, however, and they helped to ease Lincoln’s bewildering nervousness.  
  
He grabbed her chin, tipped her head back and kissed her. He started out soft and gentle, but when she opened her lips to his tongue, he kissed her deeply, his tongue leaving no part of her mouth unexplored. After several long, breathless moments, he finally broke away to whisper, “Can you think of any other reasons people go to Vegas?” while his palm cupped her breast warmly. His thumb rubbed over the hardened tip and Jane’s cheeks began to flush with color, her eyes turning smoky as she opened them in an attempt to answer his question.  
  
He could tell his kisses and caresses had muddled her brain though, because she obviously had no idea what he was asking her. Finally, he pushed her on to her back and with his body half on top of hers, he announced, “This is my retarded way of asking you to marry me, Jane. Will you go to Vegas with me?”  
  
Her beautiful face transformed again, the silliness and arousal were replaced by deep emotion, the same that had decorated her countenance when she’d declared he was her home now. Her hand slid into the hair at the back of neck, the hair he’d grown out for her because he’d had no pictures to show her of how he’d looked when he was younger and his hair had been longer. Pulling him closer, she whispered against his mouth, “Yes, please.”


	9. Chapter 9

Jane found that once Lincoln got an idea in his head, trying to shake it loose was pretty impossible.  
  
Not that she wanted him to change his mind about getting married, she just wanted more time to prepare for it. So she nixed leaving the next morning idea right away. First he wanted to go without even telling the rest of their housemates. Jane quickly squelched that because after all they'd been through, there was no way they could leave without a word. Everyone would suspect the worst and assume The Company had decided it wasn't through with them.  
  
Additionally, she knew how upset LJ would be if they got married without him.  
  
Michael couldn't go with them, of course, because he was still a wanted fugitive in the U.S., though Sara's father's friend, Bruce Bennett, was still working to get Michael exonerated; it looked promising, it just hadn't happened yet.  
  
In the end, she finally convinced Lincoln that they needed to wait until her period was over, so they could have sex as a newly married couple. This was the only argument she was able to use that he didn't find some way around. Because like it or not, Lincoln would always be a man with a healthy sexual appetite and it ruled his life far more than he wanted to admit. He even seemed to forget that because of her birth control her period only lasted four days, but he gave her until the following Friday before they would travel northward. That was a full seven days for them to get organized.  
  
Jane had private thoughts about that, so private, she didn’t even let him see the triumphant smile that erupted on her face when he finally conceded defeat. He liked to think he ran things, but she knew the truth.  
  
Really, everyone except Lincoln knew the truth, and they all seemed content to let him have his delusion.  
  
At the dinner table a few days later, LJ asked, “So are you gonna be Jane Burrows now?”  
  
Before Jane could respond, Lincoln said, “Of course she is!” When Michael, Sara, Sofia, LJ and Jane all turned their heads to stare at him, he visibly shrank. “I mean, uh…aren’t you?” His gaze skittered from face to face before finally landing on Jane’s as he smiled weakly.  
  
“I actually haven’t thought about it, yet,” Jane said, dragging her eyes from Lincoln’s face to that of his son’s. “Since we only decided we were doing this a few days ago, I haven’t been able to process everything yet.” Not while she was Googling Las Vegas hotels and the least gaudy chapel she could manage to find on the Internet.  
  
She was being diplomatic as well as honest.  
  
“Lots of women don’t take their husband’s name. It doesn’t mean anything,” Sara offered, her tone conversational, her eyes on Michael. When Michael cleared his throat and lifted his brows at her, Jane felt sure this was a silent communication that screamed  _Lincoln may have a different view of that_. But of course he would, because he was Lincoln. That was why she’d fallen in love with him to begin with. His caveman tendencies, while somewhat irritating, were also terribly endearing. But all the same, she didn’t want to have the discussion at the dinner table with four other opinions besides the only two who mattered.  
  
“I think Burrows is a cool name, though,” LJ said, his revelation reminding Jane of his age, and his lack of understanding about the dynamics between men and women. She had witnessed over the passing months, LJ’s dogged devotion to Sofia, and he didn’t seem to be aware that she viewed him as a little brother. In fact, when Lincoln had spoken to him about it (at Jane’s insistence), his only concern had been about their age difference—he was almost 17 now, and Sofia was 23. Lincoln hadn’t discouraged him the way Jane would have liked, but he had given him the reality check that Sofia’s boyfriend had died recently, tragically, and it was unlikely she was looking at  _anyone_  romantically, but especially not someone that much younger than her. LJ’s assumption that if she was given enough time to heal, she would come around to his way of thinking didn’t sit well with Jane, but Lincoln was convinced that he would give up eventually, or meet someone else who lit his spark, and he’d told her not to worry about it.  
  
But she couldn’t help it. She was about to officially become LJ’s stepmother in a matter of days, but she’d been in that capacity for nine months already. Some instincts, even those most underused surged to the fore when properly irrigated. In response to the plaintive note in LJ’s voice, she said, “Honey, I have nothing against the name. I just never really thought about getting married and changing my name. Now I need to think about it.”  
  
Her eyes moved back to Lincoln, whose expression was a little less than thunderous, and plainly said  _What’s to think about?_  though he remained quiet. She smiled softly at him, trying to take the sting from her words. “I’m not against it, I’m just undecided, okay?” She reached over and wrapped her fingers around Lincoln’s thick wrist, squeezing him gently.  
  
She watched while he and LJ exchanged conspiratorial looks, and she knew they were of the same mind about the subject. Sofia said softly, “You could always hyphenate your name, you know. Be Jane Phillips-Burrows.”  
  
Jane looked over at the young woman and nodded. “That’s a great idea,” Lincoln said enthusiastically, throwing Sofia a huge smile.  
  
“Something else to think about, no doubt,” Jane hedged, still not willing to make the decision at the committee level.  
  
Lincoln’s smile faded when she didn’t readily agree, and Jane hid her own smile by wiping her mouth with her napkin. Considering all he’d been through, she found the fact that such small things could make or break his day charming. Despite her weakness for said charm, she didn’t intend to make the decision within five minutes of the idea being presented to her. “I have time to decide, since we’re not going to Las Vegas until the end of the week,” she said as a reminder.  
  


*

  
  
The next day Jane was sipping a green tea and sitting in the chair in front of her bank of surveillance cameras. She’d never seen anything suspicious, not in the nearly five months they’d been living in Mexico, but she still felt the need to observe at least a couple hours each day. Sometimes she went back through the tapes that recorded when she wasn’t watching, but today she watched the live feed contemplatively, weighing the great name debate from the preceding evening.  
  
When they’d gone to bed, Lincoln hadn’t said another word about it, but he really hadn’t said another word period, which was abnormal. Even when they argued, he didn’t give her the silent treatment. He had always been much more likely to shout his grievances than keep them to himself. In the darkness, she had reached out to him, and when he hadn’t moved away from her, she had eased her body up behind his, tucking her face against his back and aligning her legs with his.  
  
His arm had lifted, allowing her to slide hers under his and their hands joined together. She hadn’t said anything, instead she'd tried to let her actions show that she loved him and that was in no way reflected by whether or not she took his name, but she could tell it hurt him anyway. The way he handled this hurt, however, was so un-Lincoln-like it threw her for a loop.  
  
A knock at the door of the den drew her thoughts away from the sad tension they’d fallen asleep with between them. Sara’s head poked through the opened door. “You got a minute?” she asked.  
  
Jane chuckled, motioning towards the docile television monitors in front of her. “I’m swamped, actually. Come back later.”  
  
Sara grinned widely, and entered the room. Shutting the door with a decisive twist of her wrist, she grabbed the other chair that sat behind a desk on the opposite side of the room and wheeled it over to be near Jane. “How are things?” Jane asked.  
  
“I’m doing all right,” Sara said.  
  
“Still having nightmares?”  
  
“Only a couple times a week now, which is much better. Those techniques you gave me help a lot, and of course, Michael’s always up for his own kind of therapy,” she added with a wink.  
  
Jane had just taken a mouthful of tea, and it required a great deal of self-control to swallow it without choking on her laughter. “I’ve always believed they were brothers, but now I know for sure,” she wheezed once she could speak again.  
  
“Yes, they are alike in a few ways,” Sara agreed, her eyes dancing. “Which is what brings me to you today.”  
  
“What’s up?” Jane asked.  
  
“The name thing, of course,” Sara said, looking a bit sheepish.  
  
Jane set her bottle of tea down. “I know, right? I mean, who would think it could cause such a controversy? I really need to thank LJ for that,” she added darkly.  
  
“I just wanted you to know I’m with you. I decided a long time ago, should I ever get married, I would be a hyphenate. I’m the only Tancredi left from my dad’s line, and I’m not willing to give it up entirely. Besides the fact that it’s just a cool name,” she said, the way she dropped her voice slightly a very spot-on imitation of Lincoln’s son.  
  
Jane couldn’t help but laugh. Shaking her head, she confided, “Lincoln was seriously depressed last night. Like  _seriously. Depressed_. He wouldn’t even talk to me, though he did allow me to cuddle with him until I fell asleep. I was just sitting here thinking about it, and it really doesn’t matter to me. I don’t have any particular attachment to my name, and really, if I think of it as an alias, it’s probably a good idea, right? There are probably people looking for Jane Phillips. No one will be looking for Jane Burrows.”  
  
Sara nodded her agreement before she explained further. “Michael and I were discussing it last night, and he is strangely archaic himself. I mean, I expect Lincoln to be a little—primordial? I guess? But Michael? It surprised me. I told him if and when we ever get married, he can only expect me to hyphenate my name, and that was something I’d decided long before I met him. In the end he grumbled something about that being a fair compromise, but he was still pouting about it a little. Of course, I think more than anything, he’s upset that he won’t be there when his brother gets married, so he’s channeling a little of his angst my way. But that’s just my amateur psychoanalysis.”  
  
Jane snorted, adding her own example. “You know the crazy SOB wanted to just get up and drive to Vegas? It took every argument I could pull out to get him to wait a week. I knew everyone would be upset about it anyway, but especially if we just snuck off.”  
  
“Single-mindedness. Another trait they share,” Sara announced.  
  
“While it’s admirable, and useful in some situations, other times it’s…” Jane trailed off, unsure which adjective best described her feelings about it.  
  
“Annoying?” Sara supplied.  
  
“Maddening,” Jane agreed.  
  
“Down right irritating.”  
  
“But oh-so-wonderful, you know. When you need  _therapy_.”  
  
Laughing together, they both looked up guiltily when the door opened suddenly and Lincoln found them. “What’s going on in here?” he asked, making his way over to them.  
  
Jane looked at Sara, and Sara looked at her, and then they just laughed harder. “Nothing, baby,” Jane said, stretching her arm out towards him. He’d been gone from the bed before she awoke that morning, and she had learned from LJ that he had gone for a surfing session. Calming her giggles, she asked, “How were the waves?”  
  
He reached out in return, taking her hand and squeezing it tightly as he came to stand next to her chair. “Not very big. It was sort of depressing,” he murmured, his face reflecting that things all around were just not very good. Jane suppressed another smile, but she couldn’t help the furtive glance she shot at Sara. “And, I swear I just heard Michael on the phone with Sucre, inviting him to our wedding! I’m telling you, we should have just gone without saying anything. Now it’s gonna be wall to wall people.” Jane looked back up at his face in time to see his eyebrows drop down over his eyes as he glared at her, or the world in general.  
  
“Fernando, Maricruz and their little girl are hardly wall to wall people, Lincoln,” Sara said, saving Jane the trouble of pointing out the obvious about their friends that lived a couple hours away from them.  
  
He cut his brother’s girlfriend in on the glare. “Yeah, thanks for the math lesson,” he grumped.  
  
Jane laughed again, and tugged on Lincoln’s arm. “Don’t be mean. She’s just to being reasonable.” Something she wasn’t altogether sure Lincoln could be over this whole wedding topic. As something that had started as what seemed like a spur of the moment thing, she knew now that he’d had some kind of detailed idea in his head about it, but the further they got into it, the more those details were changing, and the more he wasn’t liking it. “Why don’t we go for a walk?” she suggested, rising to her feet slowly. She glanced back at the television monitors.  
  
“You can drag yourself away from this excitement?” Lincoln groused questioningly.  
  
Elbowing him in the stomach, she huffed out an exasperated breath. “Quit being such a big baby. You’re going to end up getting your way anyway, and then you’re going to feel foolish for having pouted so much.”  
  
His eyes lit up at her declaration and he raised his eyebrows excitedly. “I’m going to get my way?” Then his face fell slightly. “Wait. About  _what_  exactly?”  
  
That was when Jane knew she had some negotiating to do. It was time to make him sweat just a little bit longer. “Why don’t we go discuss that right now?”  
  
Jane extended her hand towards her fiancé and when he took it and pulled her towards the door, she threw Sara a wink.  
  
“Good luck, Lincoln,” Sara said quietly, as though she didn’t want him to hear, though Jane was certain she did want him to hear it. Particularly when she said, “You’re gonna need it!”  
  


*

  
  
“What are we doing?” he asked, a hint of impatience attached to his tone.  
  
“We’re going to enjoy the sunshine,” Jane said, pulling him along behind her. There was a small copse of trees on the same property their house sat on, and she had spent time there, when doing perimeter checks. She’d often thought it would be a good place to hide; the visuals from there to the house were excellent. One could see out quite well, but not see in. It seemed like a good place to have a serious discussion with Lincoln that would not get interrupted by one of their family members.  
  
Once they arrived at the secluded spot, Lincoln looked around suspiciously, as though he expected to be ambushed. Jane rolled her eyes, shoved her hand against his chest and hooked her ankle around the back of his calf, knocking him flat on his back. He landed with a surprised grunt, his eyes widening and a bad word escaping his lips as he looked up at her. “What was that for?” he asked, disturbed.  
  
Jane knelt down next to him, placing her hand against his chest again when he made to sit up. “Lay down,” she murmured. “I want to lay out here, in the sunshine with you.” She lay down next to him, so their shoulders were touching. His head was turned towards her, still eyeing her warily. “Hold my hand,” she commanded, lifting her arm up so that her hand was visible to him.  
  
Lincoln’s thick fingers laced through hers immediately, and Jane sighed contentedly. He wasn’t always this easy to boss around, but she’d caught him off guard and now he was trying to figure out what she was up to. “What the hell’s going on?” he finally huffed, his voice subdued now, like his body.  
  
“I want to talk,” she responded.  
  
“About what?” he asked, his pitch rising just slightly in volume.  
  
“How long have we known each other?” she countered.  
  
There was a pause, and Jane fought against opening her eyes and turning her head to look at him to read his expression. “I don’t know. About 10 months, I guess.”  
  
“Right, so most people would think we’re crazy to be getting married, don’t you think?”  
  
His fingers clenched around hers. “If you don’t want to get married, just say s—“  
  
“I WANT TO GET MARRIED, LINCOLN!” She raised her voice significantly to be heard over the anxiety coloring his speech. “Could you just have a conversation with me, without freaking out right now. Please?” she coaxed, placing her free hand over the top of their joined hands to caress his knuckles.  
  
He grunted, but remained silent.  
  
“Okay. So people would think we’re crazy, right?” she prodded.  
  
“I guess so,” he muttered.  
  
“But I would counter and say that it’s because of what we’ve been through, that we don’t want to waste time. We love each other, we want to be married, right?”  
  
“Yes,” he answered emphatically.  
  
“We haven’t known each other long, but we’ve always been honest with each other, right? Able to say whatever we needed to say, right?”  
  
Another short pause. She could tell he was sensing a trap. “Uh, yeah. I mean, yes. I’ve always been honest with you.”  
  
“Except last night. Last night you didn’t say anything,” she pointed out.  
  
“Oh, Jane,” he sighed, and she felt him heave himself up so he was leaning over her. His empty hand brushed her chin, tipping her head towards him, so she opened her eyes. “I wasn’t  _not_  being honest,” he said softly. “You know how I feel about it. I was just trying to not be demanding about it.”  
  
“By not speaking to me?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.  
  
“Fine, it hurt my feelings, is that what you want to hear?” He spat the words quickly, as though admitting to the hurt was harder than actually enduring it.  
  
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” she replied.  
  
He dropped his eyes away from hers, looking away before falling back over on to his back. “Yes. It hurt my feelings, but I know it shouldn’t, so I’m trying to ‘not be a big baby,’” he said, imitating her in an unflatteringly high-pitched voice that sounded nothing at all like her.  
  
She put him out of his misery, making her announcement quickly. “I’m going to take your name.”  
  
He was in the process of throwing his free arm up over his eyes, but he paused and turned his head to look at her. “You are?” he asked, astonished.  
  
“Yes. I’ve decided that Phillips has no real value to me anyway. I would like to have your name.”  
  
He flipped up on his side again, leaning over, closer than before. Disengaging their laced fingers, he rested on his elbow while his other hand cupped her face gently. “Really?”  
  
“Really,” she confirmed, surprised that his reaction could cause tears to prick her eyes.  
  
His mouth came down on hers, the sweet moment extended through a thoroughly loving kiss that reminded her of what made her fall in love with him in the first place. He might be like a bull in a china shop, but the passion in his kisses made her feel like they were waltzing gracefully to a tune only they could hear.  
  
Her arms surrounded his neck and the kisses grew from a gentle celebration to out and out foreplay. His tongue mimicked his particular style of lovemaking so absolutely that Jane wasn’t even entirely aware when he moved between her thighs until her legs were gripping his hips, fiercely holding him locked against her. His lips broke away from hers to travel down her throat, nipping and sucking her skin erotically until she was trembling from head to toe. “Linc…” she moaned, not even sure if she was trying to call him off or not.  
  
“I know, I know…” he whispered against her skin. Then he mumbled something that sounded like “fuckin’ period,” but Jane wasn’t sure.  
  
He buried his nose against her neck, tucking his face into her hair. He was no longer kissing and caressing her aggressively, but he was holding her closely, and allowing her to do the same for him until his body relaxed somewhat. Jane was the one who had rules about sex during her period; Lincoln had made it abundantly clear on more than one occasion that he thought that was why shower sex had been invented in the first place. Jane momentarily agreed with him. She should have realized giving him the simple gift of taking his name would please him enough to warrant some strong affection.  
  
She stoked her fingers through his hair, following the dark strands that fell onto the back of his neck. His hair, once grown out, was surprisingly wavy, and sexy, though she shouldn’t have been so amazed by it. But like everything else about him, it just turned out to be something she liked very much. To bring the conversation back around, she murmured against his ear, “So you got your way, at least on one thing, huh?”   
  
He shuddered alongside her, the heat of her breath on his earlobe causing a full resurgence from him against the apex of her thighs that she wasn’t expecting. He groaned lowly, and she laughed evocatively, letting her breath waft over his ear again. “You are such a tease,” he grated out, lifting his head, his intent to move away from her obvious.  
  
She tightened her legs around him, holding him to her. “You got your way, you big baby. Aren’t you even going to acknowledge that?”  
  
He examined her face, and his eyes grew serious, though the flush of desire didn’t recede totally. “What if I traded you the name thing for what I really want?” he asked.  
  
“We have to let everyone come to the wedding, baby. It’s mean to tell them they can’t come,” she chided.  
  
He shook his head. “No, I don’t care about that. Well, I care about it, but what can I do? I couldn’t keep Michael out of Fox River, I have a feeling I won’t be able to keep him out of Vegas.”  
  
“Michael can’t come!” Jane blurted out.  
  
“I’m positive that’s what him and Sucre were talking about. Trying to figure out some way they can come, even though they’re both wanted felons.” He rolled his eyes and then shrugged. “He’s going to do whatever he wants. There’s no point in trying to stop him.”  
  
Jane worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “Well,” she said after a moment. “Sucre and his family do have identification—false I.D., but I.D. all the same. I guess they could make it into the country relatively easy, but there’s no way Michael can. Unless he plans on getting a very good tan in just a few days to masquer—“  
  
“Jane,” Lincoln said, interrupting her ponderings.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’ve got an offer here; you can keep your name if you give me something else.”  
  
“But I don’t want to keep my name,” she said, smiling when he scowled at her.  
  
“You don’t even want to know what I want?” he demanded.  
  
“I don’t know.  _Do_  I?” she asked, leaning her face up and peering deeply into his eyes. He blinked first so she stole a quick kiss before she dropped her head back to the soft grass beneath them.  
  
Lincoln took a deep breath, as if steeling himself. Then he said, “I want you to stop taking your birth control pills.”  
  
Jane, having been full of lust for him, and then trading that in for having fun teasing him, was completely unprepared for this request. In fact, her mouth fell open and a no noise came out at all, for at least thirty seconds. Then, the only sound she could come up with was, “Oh.”  
  
Lincoln’s eyebrows went up comically, only to come down darkly and then a shadow passed over his face.  
  
“Oh,” Jane said again.  _Oh, no._  
  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he muttered, this time fully disengaging himself from her embrace.  
  
Her legs and arms fell open, allowing him to escape, and he sat up, turning from her somewhat so that all that was visible to her was the length of his back and all that was in her reach was the small expanse of skin where his shirt was hiked up slightly and his board shorts—the orange ones he’d gotten at the hotel in Panama—were pulled down slightly.  
  
Unable to help herself, she reached out and put her fingertips against that warm exposed part of his body. She had never been in this position ever; she’d never loved someone so much that hurting them—truly hurting them—hurt her too.  
  
Teasing Lincoln was one thing; and sorting things out so she made a decision for the right reasons was another thing. But this.  _This_.  
  
Having a baby? Her? Seriously?  
  
Before she could say anything, he began to speak. “When you didn’t want to take my name, I wondered how serious this was for you. I mean, was it just some feminist thing, or was it a more serious thing, like really, the idea of ‘til-death-do-you-part with me is just not what you have in mind. But then we started having this conversation, and I started thinking maybe I’d gotten it wrong, but…” When her fingers moved over the sensitive skin on his back as she pushed herself upright, he shivered again. “But maybe I was right all along,” he finished.  
  
Leaning her cheek against his shoulder, she slid her hand further down, into the elastic band of his shorts. The intimate touch seemed like the best balm to the disappointment she could not help him avoid. “You know you’re catching me on all sides this week. Things I’ve never thought about before—getting married, changing my name, having a baby. It’s not some sort of reflection on  _you_ , Lincoln, that I don’t know the answers to these questions. It’s a reflection on  _me_.”  
  
His head turned towards her, and she could see him look at her peripherally. “You didn’t hesitate on the getting married part,” he reminded her. “Just on the taking my name part, and the having my baby part.”  
  
“First of all,” she stated sharply. “I get to have my own issues. I didn’t come here baggage free, and I’m not just your perfect little Rambo Barbie that can adjust to your every whim. Secondly,” she lifted her face from his arm when he pulled away from her marginally. “I thought about the name thing, and came to a conclusion. The fact that I didn’t just roll over and let you impregnate me without some thought is a good thing. I mean, how much have you really thought about this? A baby would change everything. And who wants to bring a child into this world? After everything you’ve seen, Lincoln, how can you want to introduce an innocent to it?”  
  
Turning his body around to face her, Jane was surprised to see a smile on his face. “Rambo Barbie?” he questioned.  
  
She waved a hand dismissively. “Nickname from when I first joined the Army.”  
  
He laughed. “Ha. I like it.” He paused, looking down at his hands as they reached for hers. He ran his thumbs over her knuckles softly before pulling them up to his mouth. Kissing her skin softly, he murmured, “Maybe I didn’t think it through very much. Maybe all I thought about was that I love you, and you love me, and a baby would be like our love, walking around on two legs.” He paused again. “Eventually,” he amended, a grin fighting its way on to his face.  
  
Jane hated him in that moment. Hated him almost as much as she loved him. Because he’d convinced her with nothing more than a cliché for an argument.  
  
“Besides,” he continued after a brief second. “Aren’t you the one who told me not to shed tears over what  _might_  happen? You taught me to live again, Jane. What’s more alive than a family? What’s more alive than us, making babies?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Besides—nine months with no periods, who could ask for more?”  
  
She could have come back with a laundry list of the other ailments of pregnancy that one traded in for a season of missed periods, but there was no point. She might as well have already been carrying his child, it was that done of a deal.  
  
“You don’t have to decide right now,” he said, but she thought he only offered that because he could no longer see resistance in her eyes. “You can think about it. And, if you say no, it changes nothing. I still want you, forever, with or without babies.”  
  
This time Jane’s eyes really filled with tears, and since he still had her hands wrapped up in his she couldn’t even wipe them away. “Really?” she asked, aware that they had somehow exchanged positions. When they’d come to the grove of trees, she’d held his dreams in her hands, but now, with his sweet words, and his inconvenient memory, he had given her a vision of what they could be.   
  
It was something she’d never even allowed herself to hope for, but now, it was all in her power to have. “Really,” he answered.  



	10. Chapter 10

Lincoln Burrows was a simple person; at least he liked to think so. He’d never had much, so it didn’t take much to make him happy. The months and years on death row, the fighting for his life, and ultimately running for his life had made him even easier to please, when he really thought about it. All he wanted was his family around him, and a safe place to lay his head at night, and a beer whenever he got the urge.  
  
Well, okay, there was one more thing he wanted that had suddenly complicated his life—a baby with his soon-to-be wife.  
  
He had watched Jane plan a covert operation, bring Sara Tancredi back from the dead, and get them all out of Panama without the authorities finding them; he was also aware that she had been involved in many more dangerous situations before he’d ever known her—things he was better off not knowing about so he didn’t feel the panicky sensation of losing her, even though it was not even a possibility because they were all past-tense stories. But nothing had ever, as far as he could tell, brought her to her knees—albeit figuratively—except the idea of being a mother. Carrying a child, to her, was the most foreign thing he could ask for.  
  
He was strangely delighted to find this chink in her armor, only because it gave him the opportunity to teach her something for once, instead of being the recipient. So he spent the next few days campaigning as to why she would make a stellar mother. He started with the obvious: LJ. Granted LJ had a pair of moms with Sara around, but just the same, he deferred to Jane the way most boys would to the mother who had raised them. He went on to illustrate further by pointing out all her positive character traits, and how those things didn’t just make her a great person, but a potentially wonderful mother. When she’d still looked at him doubtfully, he’d gone to Michael for help, but his brother’s contributions had been clinical—with regard to her hips, which were just full enough to make the birthing process less complicated, and given the givens with her ample bosom, she would be able to breastfeed easily too. Lincoln’s recitation of these facts hadn’t been as clinical, however, and they’d ended up in the middle of their bed, because Jane’s period was finally over anyway.  
  
In the aftermath, as they lay panting together, Lincoln moved off of her to place his hand over her flat stomach. Then he told her something he’d never said aloud to anyone ever before.  
  
“I never wanted LJ, you know,” he murmured. Lifting his eyes from the sight of his sun-browned hand resting over her pale belly to her face, he continued, “When he was coming, anyway. Once he was here, I was thrilled—it was something I could never have known I would feel until I looked at him and felt it. But he  _was_  an accident—Lisa wasn’t anyone I cared much about, and it was just one of those things that young, stupid kids do. She was Catholic, and couldn’t see her way around an abortion, but I can still remember the panic of it. The idea of being someone’s father scared the shit out of me. The responsibility, the money—fuck, I can also still remember the pressure to make my child support payments, and the shame when I couldn’t manage it—but there was always LJ. LJ came out sweet, and just got sweeter. He loved me, even when he didn’t see me for weeks at a time, and he took a long time to learn how to be disappointed, so I had a lotta years of freebies. Because I was a major fuck up then. Now, I try to make it up to him without him even knowing it.” He moved his fingers caressingly over her skin, his forefinger rimming her belly button gently. “But the idea of putting a baby inside you—man! It makes me hard, and it makes me kinda giddy. I think about it and it’s like the highest high I could ever reach. I guess this is the way it’s supposed to be—how you’re supposed to feel when you’re ready.”  
  
Her eyes filled up with tears somewhere around the middle of his monologue and he could feel the arrival. They were both getting to the same place, and the sensation robbed him of breath. He loved Jane more than he could comprehend, and the merging of their lives had given him more happiness than he’d even known was possible. Her hands cupped his face and drew him down to her so that their lips could meet. “I love you,” she whispered against his mouth.  
  
“I love you,” he responded. “So, so much.”  
  
“We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” she asked.  
  
Lincoln hesitated just briefly, his eyes searching hers. “Yes,” he said, more certain than he’d ever been about anything.  
  


*

  
  
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” Fernando Sucre quipped as they entered the hotel near the chapel Jane had chosen as the place they would get married.  
  
“That better not be true,” Jane said, shooting a grin over her shoulder at him. “I still want to be married when I get back to Mexico.”  
  
Lincoln had no idea what Sucre and his crafty brother had done, but somehow they were both able to get over the Mexican border into the U.S. without detection. Now, Lincoln, Jane, LJ, Michael, Sara, Sofia, Fernando, his wife Maricruz, and their little girl, were all checking into a swanky hotel—under fake names of course. Even though Lincoln could travel in the U.S. without fear of arrest, being infamous was almost as bad as being a wanted fugitive, so they all had code names that Jane had assigned to them.  
  
“I think Fernando is just talking about the casinos, right, baby?” Maricruz asked. Lincoln had heard Michael mention to Sara that Sucre planned to make a little cash at the Poker tables if he could.   
  
Sucre shifted his daughter on his hip and smiled at his wife. “That’s right, baby,” he said.  
  
“If you get arrested in this casino, so help me, God, Sucre—I will kill you if you ruin my wedding,” Lincoln breathed rapidly. He hadn’t wanted a procession anyway, especially if Sucre’s motivation for coming had been to get rich quick.  
  
“Aw, relax,  _papi_. I won’t do anything to mess up your weekend. I promise.” Sucre patted Lincoln on the back and exchanged a knowing look with Michael. Lincoln turned his glare on his brother, because he knew they just thought he was ‘nervous.’ Hell, he wasn’t nervous, he was  _serious_ , and if anything screwed up his and Jane’s plans, he wouldn’t hesitate to whup Sucre’s ass, baby or no baby.  
  
Jane’s hand slid inside Lincoln’s palm and she tugged him forward so they were standing at the counter and he was forced to put on a pleasant face as a young man checked their reservations and gave them their room keys.  
  
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she said softly as the clerk’s fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard.  
  
Lincoln glanced down at her and then wrapped his arm around her shoulder to hug her to his side. “That’s right, but if something does happen, and it’s that asshole’s fault? I’m going to kill him.”  
  
He flashed a grin at the clerk, acting as though he was joking, but Jane’s fingers reached up and pinched his belly, so he knew she knew he was totally serious.  
  
“Here you are, Mr. And Mrs. Jones.” After the clerk handed them their room card-keys, Jane turned around to pass them out to their group. They had three rooms on the same floor—one for the Sucres, one for Lincoln and Jane, and another for Michael, Sara, LJ and Sofia who were planning to sleep boys and girls only in the king-sized beds. Lincoln knew LJ was still hopeful that at some point Sofia would see things in a different light, but for this three-day excursion, it was still very much platonic.  
  
Although, for tonight, the night before the wedding, the girls were all bunking down together while the boys were kept separate. It was Jane’s idea, not Lincoln’s, but he’d agreed to it because he would really do anything Jane wanted him to do, even when he didn’t really see the sense in it. It was some sort of tradition, and he figured he could let her have that when he was getting away with a wedding in Vegas.   
  
In the elevator up to the sixth floor, Lincoln slid his hand down her back to her ass, cupping her bottom gently and pulling her tightly into him. He wasn’t going to sleep at all tonight, not because he wasn’t with her, but because tomorrow, he was agreeing to be with her forever. He didn’t have any doubts, but panic still seemed to tease the edge of his mind, because a commitment was, well, scary. They were in the back corner, the rest of their friends and family standing in front of them, talking about various things.  
  
Jane pressed her face into his neck, and he felt her take a deep breath. Then her lips skated over his collarbone and she smiled against his skin. “You’re not gonna run out on me, are you?” she asked.  
  
Squeezing her against him, he lowered his lips to her ear and whispered, “Not when you might be carrying my baby,” which was really the wrong thing to say, because it had the same effect on him it always did. Imagining her pregnant made his stomach muscles tighten in lustful anticipation.  
  
Her laughter surrounded him as she shifted so her mouth could find his. “That’s not a good reason to get married,” she murmured against his lips.  
  
He kissed her then as though they were going into the same hotel room together, uncaring of their audience. Sucre wolf-whistled as the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened to their floor. Lincoln held up a hand with his middle finger extended and he heard Sara laugh and someone’s hand pushed his arm down. “Not in front of the baby,” Sara said, a note of mockery in her voice.  
  
“Sheesh, get a room!” LJ shouted, his voice trailing off as he stepped off the elevator.   
  
Jane pulled away first, her flushed cheeks and bright eyes enough to make Lincoln wish they were already married. “We have a room, you little punk,” she hollered after her soon-to-be stepson. “But we aren’t headed there until tomorrow. Give us a break!”  
  
While everyone laughed good-naturedly, they all started down the hall towards their rooms. Lincoln and Jane’s was on the left hand side, but the other two were on the right. It was late, they had been in the car most of the day, and Lincoln supposed, he was the only one who didn’t feel ready for bed.  
  
“Say goodnight to your bride,” Michael said as he opened the door to the room he, LJ and Lincoln would be sleeping in.  
  
Lincoln let go of Jane then, but when their eyes met he saw the same nervous excitement in her face that had to be so obvious on his. “Goodnight, bride,” he parroted obediently.  
  
Jane’s smile was full and radiant, and nearly as gut wrenching for him as the idea of getting her pregnant. “Goodnight, groom,” she echoed. Leaning up, she kissed him again, quickly, and then moved towards the door Sara and Sofia were standing near. “Next time I see you, it will be too late to run.”  
  
“You’d catch me anyway, and beat the shit out of me,” he answered.  
  
“True enough,” she shot back, throwing him a flirtatious wink.  
  
“Oh, God,” LJ groaned dramatically. He stepped up, grabbed Lincoln by his arms, and shoved him through the door that Michael was holding open. “He loves you,” he directed at Jane, “and she loves you,” he said to his father. “Now, get to bed!”  
  
As Michael shut the door with a chuckle, Lincoln heard Jane yell, “I can beat the shit of out you, too, LJ!”  
  


*

  
  
As it happened, everything went off without a hitch. Lincoln wasn’t required to kill Sucre, or do anything except put on some dress clothes (no tie, of course) and head over to the chapel ahead of Jane so that they didn’t see each other before the ceremony.  
  
Michael and LJ were both in suits, and they both wore ties even though Lincoln told them they didn’t have to. Michael was serving as best man, while LJ had been asked to walk the bride down the aisle. Once they were in the chapel, LJ left to go find the ladies and make sure everything was on schedule.  
  
“Sure could use a beer,” Lincoln mused, glancing at his younger brother as they waited with the officiator and the organist.  
  
Michael arched a brow and then checked his watch. “Linc, it’s 10:30. A M,” he emphasized a moment later, each letter its own distinct sound.  
  
“We’ll see how calm you are when it’s your turn, smart ass,” Lincoln grumbled.  
  
Smiling warmly, Michael reached out and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You’ve never had a surer thing than Jane, Linc. Don’t be nervous.”  
  
The sentiment burned in Lincoln’s chest, but he couldn’t help asking for further reassurance. “You think so?”  
  
Michael’s serious side emerged to cover his disdain at Lincoln wanting a beer at such an early hour. “Don't you?”  
  
Lincoln shook his head. “No, I do, I mean, I know Jane loves me. I know she wants this, it’s just…” He shrugged, unsure of the right words. “Sometimes it feels like it’s too much. Like I don’t deserve all of it, you know?”  
  
Michael’s fingers tightened on Lincoln’s shoulder. “Sure, I know. But you do, Linc. You do deserve it. After everything, you’ve earned it.” Michael slapped his hand genially against Lincoln’s back and then straightened his tie-less collar with an inspecting eye. “And Jane doesn’t just love you. She would take a bullet for you. That’s stronger than mere love, in my opinion.”  
  
Lincoln sniffed, sudden emotion welling up with his brother’s pronouncement. “Man, don’t get me started. I want to get through this without blubbering.”  
  
A sharp laugh escaped Michael’s lips. “If there’s one day to let your emotions get the better of you, then today would be the day.” Michael lifted his hands up until his palms rested against Lincoln’s cheeks. “It doesn’t get much better than this.”  
  
Lincoln had a brief flash of a newborn baby being placed into his arms, and he knew he had a good argument for Michael, but he let it go. Today was about putting things in order, and celebrating the fact that making a family with Jane was a purposeful action, not just a random error on his part.  
  
Michael was right, it didn’t get any better than knowing you were doing the right thing. And finally, Lincoln was doing the right thing.  
  
When the first notes sounded on the organ, Michael grasped him by the shoulders and turned him so he was facing the short aisle Jane would walk up. The doors opened and Sucre, his little girl on his hip again, and Maricruz walked in, seating themselves quickly on one of the few pews available. Then Lincoln saw Sara, standing just in front of Jane and LJ. The wedding march began, and Sara moved forward towards Lincoln and Michael.  
  
Lincoln’s throat grew tight, and blinked his eyes rapidly in an effort to be able to see Jane clearly. It wasn’t just that he wanted to hold on to his emotions so as not embarrass himself, he wanted to be able to  _see_  her.  
  
Her dress was a simple, sleeveless light brown/weird shade of purple color. The skirt was straight and form fitting, and hit her about mid-calf. It didn’t look like a wedding dress at all—the fact that she had chosen to wear a dress at all caught him by surprise initially. Her hair was drawn back from her face into a fancy kind of bun on the back of her head. She had small purple flowers woven across the top of her head that Sara must had placed there. And her face was positively breathtaking. It wasn’t until LJ deposited her right next to Lincoln and put her hand in his, that he realized he’d never seen her with make-up on before. She had the same brown/purple color across her eyelids, which caused the natural blue hue of her eyes to stand out more vividly.   
  
He must have looked like the whipped pup he was because tears sprang to her eyes and she whispered commandingly, “Stop looking at me like that, you’ll mess up my make up!” She blinked a couple times and then tipped her head back, as if willing the tears to stay within the edges of her eyes. “Sara!” she said urgently, and the maid of honor stepped forward to dab expertly at the corners of Jane’s eyes.  
  
Lincoln laughed because he’d never seen her act so girly in all the time he’d known her. “You’re just so beautiful,” he said softly. “I can’t help it,” he amended when that didn’t seem to help the damage Sara had just tried to repair.  
  
“Maybe we should have taken photos beforehand,” she muttered.  
  
Lincoln pulled her close, wrapping his arm around her waist. “You’re the one who wanted us not to see each other until this moment,” he reminded her. He felt her tense against him, and he wondered if she would lay him out even on their wedding day if he pissed her off. Cupping her face in one hand, he gently ran his thumb under one of her leaking eyes, and didn’t even take away any mascara. Kissing the end of her nose, he added, “It was worth the wait.”  
  
She stiffened in his embrace, not as a preliminary to inflicting pain upon him, but because she took a fortifying breath and dipped her cheek into his palm in a cat-like gesture. “Let’s just get married and not worry about the rest of it, shall we?” she asked, her voice thick with love.  
  
“That’s a good idea,” he whispered and then he kissed her mouth, barely restraining himself from an R-rated, LJ-groan-inducing assault on her because in that moment he wanted her more than he ever had before.  
  
She pulled back, but he could feel the answering tension in her body, the same simmering need that enveloped him, and he loved her more than he ever had before for always being right there with him no matter what he felt.  
  
The marriage officiator interrupted by saying, “I do believe the kissing comes at the end of the ceremony,” which caused everyone to laugh.  
  
Jane pulled herself from Lincoln’s arms and then captured his hand in her own, lacing their fingers. “We’re not very good at doing things in the proper order,” she said, winking at Lincoln before turning her full radiance on the little old man who would pronounce them husband and wife.   
  
Lincoln had to stifle a smile as their pastor seemed to lose his train of thought.  
  
Yeah, causing speechlessness was just one of the many effects Jane had.


End file.
